Missing in Action 2: The Beginning

Missing in Action 2: The Beginning
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lance Hool
Produced by	Menahem Golan Yoram Globus
Written by	Arthur Silver Larry Levinson Steve Bing
Starring	Chuck Norris Soon-Tek Oh Steven Williams Bennett Ohta Cosie Costa Joe Michael Terry
Music by	Brian May
Edited by	Mark Conte Marcus Manton
Distributed by	Cannon Films MGM Paramount Pictures (Viacom Inc.)
Release dates	March 1, 1985 (1985-03-01) (US)
Running time	100 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2,410,000 (estimate)
Box office	$10,755,447 (USA) ^[1]^[2]

Missing in Action 2: The Beginning is a 1985 action/adventure film, and a prequel to Missing in Action, both of which star Chuck Norris. It was directed by Lance Hool and written by Steve Bing, Larry Levinson and Arthur Silver.^[3]

Missing in Action 2 was filmed at the same time as the first Missing in Action film, and was actually set to be released first before the producers changed their minds. It was followed by a sequel of its own, Braddock: Missing in Action III.

Plot

Ten years before freeing American POWs from a brutal General, Colonel James Braddock (Chuck Norris) was held in a North Vietnamese POW camp run by sadistic Colonel Yin (Soon-Teck Oh), who forces the POWs to grow opium for a French drug runner named Francois (Pierre Issot), and tries to get Braddock to admit to and sign a long list of war crimes. During his team's time in captivity, they are relentlessly subjected to various forms of humiliating torture, and Braddock being told that his wife has left him and has remarried. One of Braddock's comrades starts to suffer with malaria, and is injected with what they are told to be antibiotics. They later find out that he was in fact injected with a lethal dose of opium instead. Braddock must escape and rescue his fellow prisoners from Yin.

Cast

Chuck Norris as Col. James Braddock
Soon-Tek Oh as Col. Yin
Steven Williams as Capt. David Nester
Bennett Ohta as Capt. Ho
Cosie Costa as Mazilli
Joe Michael Terry as Opelka
John Wesley as Frankie
David Chung as Dou Chou
Sergio Kato as Stunt Double

Reception

The LA Times gave it a mixed reception but very positive to the director calling his direction as intensely megalomaniac. The movie gained a negative reception.^[4]

Box office

The movie opened at #3, grossing $3,868,515 in the opening weekend. It was released in 1,336 theaters for a $2,895 average. The opening week grossing accounted for 36% of its total grossing.^[1] The total US market revenue is $10,755,447.^[1]

References