This is the second of seven essays that will focus on the “Seasonal 7”, seven films released and made for international audiences from 1985 to 1997 with martial arts the focus. All images courtesy of Seasonal Films Corporation and Shapiro Glickenhaus Entertainment (North American Pictures/Troma) unless noted.

With the success of No Retreat, No Surrender in 1986 upon its U.S. release after opening internationally in 1985, Seasonal Films decided to capitalize and make a thematic sequel. The original idea was to bring back Kurt McKinney and Jean-Claude Van Damme in the roles of the hero and villain respectively again. Production was set to begin in Thailand and Myanmar, formerly known as Cambodia. However, both Van Damme and McKinney opted not to return due to the constant fears of shooting in areas where there was conflict.

This had put Seasonal Films in a scramble. Roy Horan (1950-2021), a former kung fu film actor from the U.S. who would go on to work as an executive at Seasonal, would head to Los Angeles to find new actors to play the hero and villain roles. Going to Gold’s Gym, Horan ran into a German bodybuilder and pentathlon athlete, Matthias Hues. Hues had wanted to get into acting and this would be the opportunity for him to break through. His 6’4” frame and build would earn him the role of Yuri, the Russian, the leader of a Soviet regime who is allying with the Viet Cong.

As for the hero Scott Wylde, calls were being made in various martial arts schools in Los Angeles. One night, a call to Jun Chong Tae Kwon Do would lead to one of the students there to answer the phone. Loren Rains Avedon was known at age 5 as the Carnation Milk Kid so he had prior acting experience. He also was a black belt in both Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido under Phillip and Simon Rhee. Avedon had small roles in martial arts films prior to the call and after auditioning, Avedon won the role of Wylde.

Corey Yuen would return as director and serve as action director alongside collaborator and original film choreographer Mang Hoi as well as Lee King-Chu and Lam Chun-Fung. In addition to Hues and Avedon, Yuen hired Cynthia Rothrock to join the cast as well as Max Thayer, who appeared in 1985’s Iron Eagle. Thayer would play Mac Jarvis, a former Vietnam War vet and Scott’s martial arts teacher who sells military weaponry to generals who are in need with Rothrock playing Mac’s on-again off-again girlfriend Terry, a helicopter pilot who is also a kickboxer.

Thai actress Patra Wanthivanond would get the role of Sulin Nguyen, Scott’s college sweetheart who is kidnapped, forcing Scott to attempt a rescue mission. Kung fu star and Tae Kwon Do ace Hwang Jung-Lee would play the Vietnamese ally of Yuri, Ty. Hwang would also do double duty teaching Matthias Hues martial arts prior to filming as suggested by Roy Horan, who not only was the producer of the film, but Hwang’s student.

While Keith W. Strandberg returned to write the original script, rewrites were made by both Horan and Maria Elena Cellino. Strandberg expressed a little disappointment at the time. Nicholas Von Sternberg, the son of German expressionist filmmaker Josef Von Sternberg (The Blue Angel), would collaborate with Hong Kong’s Ma Kam-Cheung as the directors of photography. David Spear provided the score with Lisa Donovan Lucas singing the film’s theme song, “Everywhere with You”.

Production began in 1987 in Thailand and Cambodia under a new title, Raging Thunder. Internationally, knowing it was a thematic sequel, markets either used that title or No Retreat, No Surrender 2 as its title. In 1989, Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment picked up the film and released it in limited theaters on January 27, 1989. It was not as successful as the original film but gained a following after hitting home video and airing on HBO and The Movie Channel to name a few.

In No Retreat, No Surrender 2: Raging Thunder, Scott Wylde heads to Bangkok, Thailand to see both his former teacher Mac Jarvis and fiancée Sulin Nguyen. Upon his arrival at Mac’s old gym, he meets Mac’s former flame Terry, who forces Scott to spar with a local Thai kickboxer. However, Scott’s Tae Kwon Do is able to best the kickboxer much to the chagrin of Terry. Terry tells Scott that Mac usually hangs out in Patpong, a seedy area of the city.

Arriving at the hotel, he runs into a pimp who constantly tries to coerce Scott into buying a girl. However, he calls his fiancée Sulin Nguyen and he has arrived to meet her family in hopes they will accept him. A dinner date leads to them returning to the hotel. Meanwhile, Sulin’s dad, who has been outspoken against the Viet Cong regime, narrowly escapes an ambush that kills the whole family minus Sulin and him. Sulin, however, is kidnapped, forcing Scott to fight two of the goons and kill in self-defense.

When Scott arrives at the Nguyen home, he tells the police he was trying to find her parents to tell them what happened. Scott soon finds himself on trumped up drug charges and forced to go to Singapore with no re-entry for three months. However, on the day he is supposed to leave, Scott escapes and heads to Patpong where he reunites with Mac and tells him what happened.

An attempted ambush by some of the other kidnappers forces Mac and Scott to go into action. Finally cornering one of the guys, they learn Sulin has been taken to Cambodia and the duo make their way to Mac’s warehouse. It is there where Mac reveals what Sulin’s dad had done and that the kidnapper had a specialized Soviet gun. He deciphers that the Viet Cong and Soviets have formed an alliance in Cambodia, and they have taken Sulin in exchange for her father. Finally realizing how much Scott loves Sulin, Mac reluctantly offers to help and, on their escape, they learn their new helicopter pilot is none other than Terry.

Meanwhile, the Soviet regime is led by Yuri, who arrives and learns there are some spies in the midst that were taken, including Khmer Rouge and a Chinese spy named Tiger. Yuri tests his skills against Tiger and defeats him but is impressed and offers him his freedom. However, he goes back on his word and feeds him to his crocodile pit. He forces Sulin to watch in hopes her father will show up.

The trio ends up in a secluded area owned by Colonel Tol Nol, one of Mac’s buyers. They ask Tol Nol for help in exchange for a new brand of firepower, in which he accepts as well as wanting Terry to be part of the package deal. However, an ambush occurs and Scott is injured from a grenade blast. After being nursed back to health, Scott decides to keep going and with Mac and Terry’s help, head to a nearby temple, which has been overrun from fake monks. A brawl leads to another ambush, which leads to Terry being kidnapped and both Scott and Mac presumed dead.

Upon her arrival at the Russian-Vietnamese camp, Terry finds herself going toe-to-toe with Ty. After defeating Ty, Yuri shows his strength and wants to know who hired her to get Sulin. As she and Sulin are set to be the next meals for the crocodiles, Mac and Scott hatch a plan to come to the rescue.

This underrated sequel is quite interesting in the fact that stuntman Lam Chun-Fung, credited as “Hollywood” Lam, would play two roles in the film. Sporting a funny wig and blue suit, Lam would play one of the kidnappers Scott fights off in the hotel. Then, he would reappear as Chinese spy Tiger, who takes on Matthias Hues in the German actor’s first fight scene of his career. Known for his kicking skills, Hwang Jung-Lee was invited to engage in combat against Cynthia Rothrock in a short but sweet fight.

The film would make good for both Loren Avedon and Matthias Hues in the same way the original film had helped break through Kurt McKinney and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Avedon would sign a three-picture-deal with Seasonal with this film as the first before going on to a successful career in TV and films for the years to come. As for Hues, he enjoyed training in martial arts so much that he would become a protégé of legendary kickboxer Benny “The Jet” Urquidez and his Ukidokan system and have a career himself with a breakout role in Dark Angel, or I Come in Peace, as the alien villain who faces off against Dolph Lundgren and playing villains in many 1990s martial arts action films.

Cynthia Rothrock would be the biggest star of the trio as she would go on to work with some of Hollywood’s finest upon ending her Hong Kong action career in 1990 and appearing in many films to this day, including her debut as producer, 2025’s Black Creek. Nirut Sirichanya, the Thai actor who played Colonel Tol Nol, would go on to have a taste of A-list stardom with his appearance as Ed Helms’ father-in-law in The Hangover Part II while Hwang Jung-Lee would retire from films in 1996 and at 80 years old, travels around the world promoting Tae Kwon Do and Tang Soo Do to various schools doing seminars including a 2014 reunion with co-star Rothrock.

The Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment cut of the film was trimmed down to 89 minutes. The U.S. cut omitted an opening involving Ty motioning a firing squad to shoot down political prisoners. There’s also the scenes with the pimp cut out, the dinner scene between Scott and Sulin is trimmed down, as well as the interrogation scene between Scott and a Thai officer. In addition, all subsequent scenes involving Sulin’s father are cut out, leaving a plot hole wide open.

An underrated sequel that lives up to its “no retreat, no surrender” moniker of not giving up, Loren Avedon and Matthias Hues both breakout in the way Kurt McKinney and Jean-Claude Van Damme had in the original film with great support and great fight scenes with beats of comic relief from Rothrock and Thayer.

In the next installment, I will discuss No Retreat, No Surrender 3: Blood Brothers and why it is an underrated sequel involving family and politics.