I am a little surprised at the positive reaction to the Police Story franchise. Maybe its because I'm new to the Hong Kong/Martial Arts genre but then again there was something morbidly fascinating about the first Police Story that made me jump right into the sequel. The worst part of the first film was the completely misplaced comedy and they almost completely eliminated that from the second. It still has a few comedic points but its far more appropriate to the tone of the movie and no full-on comedy gags like the first one. The plot is far more serious, the action toned down a little but still just seems to be more of what you'd expect from an "action" film called Police Story. It has villains, thugs, undercover operations, and hand to hand combat of course. The pace of this film is significantly slower and seems to really drag in the middle of the film. As much as I always like to see villains return from previous films, I'm not sure it was necessary to this story. We already have a major villain in the bomber and then we have the return villain from the last film and the story line with May and the bombers. There is a lot for one film.
Jackie Chan returns as star and director once again. He certainly sets the right tone for the film using the backdrop of Hong Kong. The film is more of a thriller than an action film because the action scenes are even more dispersed than they were in the first film. There is a very impressive explosion mid-film but the rest of the explosions seem cheap and campy. Chan doesn't showcase his usual array of skills with the exception of a few scenes. Maggie Cheung returns as Chan's girlfriend May and gets a much bigger role this time around. She is decent and they have good chemistry so she definitely works in the role well. Kwok-Hung Lam and Bill Tung also return as Chan's superiors. Fortunately they are more sparingly used so they don't seem as ridiculous as they did in the first film. There is not really a "main" villain to focus attention on. The bombers sort of all act as one entity but they do a decent job. John Cheung and Charlie Cho both return from the first film as sub-villains to the story.
Similar to the first movie, the best action scenes are at the beginning and the end of the film and as stated the middle lumbers along at a slow pace but its still fun to watch and something about this series so far really grows on you. I'm interested to see if it takes a turn further into the series especially once Chan stops directing. Its still amazing to think how these films are made with actors doing their own insane stunts and how badly they often hurt themselves (Chan included) as shown in the closing credits. If nothing else that is what makes these films so unique and fun to watch is knowing they literally put themselves through hell to bring entertainment to us. 6.5/10
Jackie Chan returns as star and director once again. He certainly sets the right tone for the film using the backdrop of Hong Kong. The film is more of a thriller than an action film because the action scenes are even more dispersed than they were in the first film. There is a very impressive explosion mid-film but the rest of the explosions seem cheap and campy. Chan doesn't showcase his usual array of skills with the exception of a few scenes. Maggie Cheung returns as Chan's girlfriend May and gets a much bigger role this time around. She is decent and they have good chemistry so she definitely works in the role well. Kwok-Hung Lam and Bill Tung also return as Chan's superiors. Fortunately they are more sparingly used so they don't seem as ridiculous as they did in the first film. There is not really a "main" villain to focus attention on. The bombers sort of all act as one entity but they do a decent job. John Cheung and Charlie Cho both return from the first film as sub-villains to the story.
Similar to the first movie, the best action scenes are at the beginning and the end of the film and as stated the middle lumbers along at a slow pace but its still fun to watch and something about this series so far really grows on you. I'm interested to see if it takes a turn further into the series especially once Chan stops directing. Its still amazing to think how these films are made with actors doing their own insane stunts and how badly they often hurt themselves (Chan included) as shown in the closing credits. If nothing else that is what makes these films so unique and fun to watch is knowing they literally put themselves through hell to bring entertainment to us. 6.5/10