Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

Rambo: First Blood Part II is a 1985 American action film directed by George P. Cosmatos and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who also reprises his role as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. A sequel to First Blood (1982), it is the second installment in the Rambo franchise, followed by Rambo III. It co-stars Richard Crenna, who reprises his role as Colonel Sam Trautman, with Charles Napier, Julia Nickson, and Steven Berkoff. The film’s plot is inspired by the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. In the film, Rambo gets released from prison in a deal with the U.S. government to document the possible existence of missing POWs in Vietnam,

but with strict orders not to rescue them. When Rambo defies his orders, he is abandoned and forced to rely once more on his own brutal combat skills to save the POWs. Despite mixed reviews, Rambo: First Blood Part II was a major worldwide box office blockbuster, with an estimated 42 million tickets sold in the US. It has become one of the most recognized and memorable installments in the series, having inspired countless rip-offs, parodies, video games, and imitations. Entertainment Weekly ranked the movie number 23 on its list of “The Best Rock-’em, Sock-’em Movies of the Past 25 Years”.

Plot.

Three years after the events in Hope, Washington, former US Army Green Beret John Rambo receives a visit from his former mission commander and old friend, Col. Sam Trautman, at a rural labor work prison. With the Vietnam War now officially over, the public has become increasingly concerned over news that a small group of US POWs have been left in enemy custody in Vietnam. To placate their demands for action, the US government has authorized a solo infiltration mission to confirm the reports. Rambo agrees to undertake the operation in exchange for a pardon. In Thailand, he is taken to meet Marshall Murdock, the bureaucrat overseeing the operation. Rambo is temporarily reinstated into the US Army and instructed only to take pictures of the suspected POW camp and not to rescue any prisoners or engage enemy personnel, as they will be retrieved by a better equipped extraction team upon his return.

Rambo Comparison: First Blood (1982) Vs First Blood Part II (1985)

During his insertion, Rambo’s parachute becomes tangled and breaks, causing him to lose his guns and most of his equipment, leaving him with only his knife, his bow, and his arrows. He meets his assigned contact, a young female Vietnamese intelligence agent named Co Bao, who arranges for a local band of river pirates to take them upriver. Reaching the camp, Rambo spots one of the prisoners tied to a cross-shaped post, left to suffer from exposure, and rescues him against orders. During their escape, they are discovered by Vietnamese troops and attacked by an armored gunboat; causing the pirates to turn on them, revealing they swapped allegiance to the Vietnamese and intend to hand them over for a reward. Rambo kills the pirates and destroys the gunboat with an RPG while the POW and Co Bao swim to safety. Rambo asks Co to stay behind shortly before they reach the extraction point. The rescue helicopter is ordered by Murdock to abort the rescue, saying Rambo has violated his orders.

Development and writing.

Development of a sequel to First Blood began when Carolco Pictures sold foreign distribution rights to distributors in Europe and Japan in 1983, initially scheduling the film for a December 1984 release. It was later rescheduled for August 1, 1985. Producers considered that Rambo would have a partner in the rescue mission of POWs. The producers allegedly wanted John Travolta to play Rambo’s sidekick, but Stallone vetoed the idea. Lee Marvin (who was considered to play Colonel Trautman in the first film) was offered the role of Marshall Murdock, but declined, leading to the role being played by Charles Napier. Then up-and-coming screenwriter Kevin Jarre had written a story treatment that was liked by both the producers and Stallone, as Jarre later recalled in an interview: “I wrote the first draft of “Rambo”. And I just did it, I was living on dog food at the time and I, you know, I needed a gig and I wanted to finish a spec script I was writing.

And you know, they called, Stallone called me in and they had this idea about what they should do in the sequel to “First Blood” and I said, “Well, how about if maybe he searches for POWs in Southeast Asia and back in Vietnam? He said “Great, let’s do it” James Cameron was then hired to pen a first draft of the screenplay (Cameron had been recommended by David Giler who did some uncredited script work on the first film) which he was concurrently writing along with The Terminator and Aliens, both of which he would go on to direct. Cameron’s first draft was titled First Blood II: The Mission. According to Cameron, his script had the same basic structure of the first film, but was more violent than its predecessor. Cameron was quoted in a October 1986 issue of Monsterland Magazine:

Filming, Marketing.

The film was shot between June and August 1984, and was shot on location in the State of Guerrero, Mexico, and Thailand. During filming, special effects man Clifford P Wenger, Jr. was accidentally killed by one of the film’s explosions. Unusually for the time, a teaser trailer for the film—then titled First Blood Part II: The Mission—was released in 3,000 theaters in the summer of 1984, over a year before its scheduled release date of August 1, 1985, and several months before any footage for the film was completed. Mario Kassar arranged this in order to capitalize off the popularity of the first film. The film was also marketed through merchandising, with posters of Rambo selling rapidly. Although the film was rated R and directed at adults, tie-in toys were created for it.

The Origins Of Stallone’s Rambo Franchise And Its ‘First Blood’

Home media, Box office.

The video sold 425,000 units, a record for a tape with a retail price of $79.95. Rambo: First Blood Part II was released on DVD on November 23, 2004, and a Blu-Ray release followed on May 23, 2008. Rambo: First Blood Part II was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray on November 13, 2018. Rambo: First Blood Part II opened in the US on May 22, 1985, in a then-record 2,074 theaters, becoming the first film to be released to over 2,000 theaters in the United States, and was the number one film that weekend, grossing $20,176,217 . Overall, the film grossed $150,415,432 in the US and Canada and $149,985,000 internationally, for a worldwide total of $300,400,432. The movie broke various international box office records. In France the film had a record opening day with 269,564 admissions.

Cast:

Sylvester Stallone as John J. Rambo
Richard Crenna as Colonel Sam Trautman
Charles Napier as Major Marshall Roger T. Murdock
Steven Berkoff as Lieutenant Colonel Sergei T. Podovsky
Julia Nickson as Agent Co Phuong Bao
Martin Kove as Michael Reed Ericson
George Cheung as Lieutenant Tay
Andy Wood as Banks
William Ghent as Captain Vinh
Voyo Goric as Sergeant Yushin
Dana Lee as Captain Trong Kinh
Steve Williams as Lifer