Police Story 2

The Hong Kong super-cop (Jackie Chan) must stop a group of blackmailing bombers at the same time that the villains of the first Police Story are out for revenge.

As much as I enjoyed this movie -- the humor, the explosions, the fast kicks to the face -- it has to be said that it never quite lives up to the first film. This should not come as a surprise to anyone, as sequels very rarely are as good as the original (though some select few do tend to be better).

We still had awesome kicks, a humor that was a bit more crude, and we had way more explosions in this one (not surprising, given the villains are bombers). But we do not get to see as much glass break, and I think the overall destruction is never quite as high. How do you top the destruction of an entire village from part one?

NEW POLICE STORY II packs a violent confrontation between Jackie and an evil bunch . This stirring story about the cop named Chan Ka Kui of the Hong Kong precinct is well played by Jackie Chan. Chan Ka-Kui or Kevin Chan(aka Jackie) is a Hong-Kong cop, who scores his first big hit by virtually single-handedly apprehending and arresting a big drug- lord in ¨Police story I ¨ . In spite his success at capturing delinquents , Kevin Chan's unorthodox approach to his work as a police officer sees him removed to the traffic branch . While the crime boss recently out from prison is harassing Kevin and his sweetheart . He then plans to take a journey to Bali with his girlfriend named May (Maggie Cheung) , but while he's at a travel agency in a shopping mall, some police agents see him and report that the mall is under a bomb threat . Unable to resist the urge to get involved in officers work, Ka Kui orders the policemen to sound the fire alarm and have the mall cleared, and agrees to take responsibility for the decision . After that , the police staff (Supt. Li played by Kwok Lam) is contemplating reinstating Kevin to help them catch a group of bombers trying to extort from building owners . Then Chan looks for vengeance against the ominous villains at a cat and mouse game.

This exciting movie is packed with intrigue, thrills , unstopped action , suspense , overwhelming stunt-work and lots of violence but with humor . Jackie Chan is top notch as one army man fighting a group of heinous criminals and as always he makes his own stunts like is showed on the final fake-shots . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual ; the picture is better constructed than Chan's predecessors films . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights movie include a stirring car pursuit , Jackie jumping over a bus ,impressive and interminable fights with Chan dangling and downing , a mall blow-up and a breathtaking final explosion and other extraordinary action sequences in James Bond style . This is a phenomenal action movie distinguished by nicely cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor such as previous entries . In this outing Jackie teams up again to prestigious actress and fine action star in their own right , like Maggie Cheung . This is a passable action movie distinguished by ferocious sequences , and packs silly sense of humor as well as Jackie's subsequent entries . Furthermore , moving and thrilling original musical score fitting to action by J Peter Robinson . The picture achieved success in USA and around the world . However , Jackie Chan's failed at Box-office in his American debut ,¨Battle creek brawl¨ . Chan is a hard-working actor and director throughout his long and varied career .He went on playing ¨Cannoball¨ , ¨The protector¨ and "Rumble in the Bronx", until getting all American success with ¨Shangai Knights¨ , ¨The tuxedo¨ , ¨Around the world in 8days¨ and ¨Rush hour¨ trilogy , and of the course the recent ¨Karate kid¨. Of course , his big hits were ¨The Police story¨ series that won the Golden Horse Award, a Chinese version of the Oscar , the first was titled ¨Police story(1985)¨ directed by the same Chan , it was a perfect action film for enthusiastic of the genre ; the following was ¨Police story 2(1988)¨also pretty violent and with abundant humor touches. It's followed by ¨Supercop¨ or ¨Police story 3¨ and finally, ¨Police story IV : Crime story. The picture is lavishly produced by the great Asian producers Raymond Chow and Golden Harvest production and compellingly directed by Jackie Chan . Rating : Acceptable and passable , the picture has its sensational moments here and there , but also pretty violent and with abundant humor touches mostly provided by its agile star , the super Jackie . It's a perfect action film for enthusiast of the genre .

In this sequel to POLICE STORY, everyone is back. Jackie Chan is getting a dressing-down for catching the bad guys.... so expensively. He's busted to traffic cop, but when the bad guys show up to threaten him and girl friend Maggie Cheung, he busts some glasses. This gets him more lecturing from fatuous squad chief Kwok-Hung Lam, so Jackie quits and heads off to Bali with Maggie.

However, some guys have planted a bomb, destroying a mall, and promise more unless the real estate company pays a huge ransom. The police don't know what to do about this, so they talk Jackie back onto the force.

In terms of story-telling, this is not a well-constructed story, since with three stories -- revenge story by the bad guys from the previous movie; rocky relationship with Miss Cheung; and bomber -- a lot winds up abandoned; even though Criterion has restored this to pretty much the original length, it's apparent that a lot was lost in editing somewhere. Still, one does not watch a Jackie Chan movie for its exquisite story-telling, but for funny stuff -- Bill Tung gets gassy at one point -- and the funny, chaotic, acrobatic gags that Jackie Chan provides to his fans. He offers them here, even though they are not as madly funny as they would become over the next five years.

It's important to note that, as director and co-writer, Chan is not a glory hog. The funniest sequence is the one where the young female officers are investigating a creep they want to turn. All in all, while Jackie Chan's movies would continue to improve because his popularity with audiences gave him greater scope, this is a lot of fun.

Inspector Ka Kui (Jackie Chan) continues his adventure in this second installment of the Police Story.

Story is a continuation of the first Police Story. Ka Kui is excused of all his actions, but gets reassigned to the traffic department. He soon gets involved with the bombers who are blackmailing the building owner. The guys who Ka Kui captured in the first part is also out of jail. His relation with Maggie is also on the rocks. Things just aren't so good for him, but when the bombers kidnaps Maggie, Ka Kui has had enough, and goes after the bombers.

This movie along with the first Police Story is filled with classic action scenes from annals of Jackie Chan's action scenes. Some of these are: Jackie crossing the freeway on foot and at the end gets hit by a van. Jackie jumping on to a two decker bus and then jumping into the glass made Lee Kum Kee's bill board. Scene where Maggie Chung runs from the villain, and steel frameworks dominoing after her (scene where she actually got hurt badly in the head). And countless falls from the building's windows.

This movie is worth watching just for these scenes, but there's a bevy of beautiful actresses from the late '80s adoring this movie.

While this movie is not the classic the first Police Story is, it's still one of the best action movies to come out of Hong Kong, and is recommended for viewing.

"Police Story 2" is a movie that mostly shows Jackie Chan's serious side. His performance is relatively mature and restrained, and he allows his character to be portrayed as not only brave, smart and determined, but flawed and selfish as well (his scene with Maggie Cheung after the fight in the playground is a key point). There is less slapstick and more plot than usual for a Chan movie; less emphasis on comedy and more on action. The action sequences are superb, and that deaf-mute guy with the incredible martial-arts skills is one of the most memorable villains Jackie ever had to face (literally: I had seen the film only once before in 1997 and I still remembered him clearly). (**1/2)