Police Story 2 review

It may be an exercise in futility to attempt a worthy sequel to Police Story. Still, Chan gives a valiant effort continuing Chan Ka Kui’s life after he apprehends the first film’s troublesome drug dealer. Kicking off with an exciting highlight reel to recap some of the more daring parts of the last film, we’re set up for a fall when the sequel can’t measure up to these scenes of which we were just reminded. The departure of the last antagonist removes a truly memorable threat from Police Story 2, which would have been especially effective as Chan finds himself in Spider-man esque situations trying to protect the ones he loves from his enemies.

Despite the absence of Brigitte Lin, and the spotlight on Maggie Cheung and her character’s relationship with Ka Kui, certain emotion is lacking as it altogether feels a tad bit contrived. Coupled with the fact that the comedy seemed dimmed down as well, fans of the first will be a bit underwhelmed. While the plot doesn’t create too rousing fight scenarios, most of the actual hand-to-hand combat has improved with the lightning quick punches choreographed in a comprehensible fashion. The choice of locations was a plus as well with a restaurant, playground and explosive warehouse that’d make you want to pick a fight there yourself. The usual environment interaction is there, top-notch and still completely unique to classic Jackie films. Police Story 2 isn’t a bad film by any means, it’s still way above average as a standalone work. It just unfortunately suffers from sequelitis that repeats all the elements we came to love from the first, but fails to top it with the zest we’d hope for in a sequel.







A-