After the last adventure, Hong Kong Inspector Kevin Chan is punished by being demoted to a patrol officer for causing massive property damage. When gangster John Ko wants to take revenge on Kevin by threatening his girlfriend May, Kevin beats him up, for which he resigns from the police. However, a new threat overshadows this incident, and thus the police bring back Kevin for the job: an anonymous criminal ring blows up a shopping mall, and threatens to place further bombs if the owner, Fung, doesn't pay them 20 million $. The gangsters kidnap May and strap a bomb on Kevin in order to force him to get the money from the company. However, Kevin manages to free himself from the bomb in a tunnel, goes back to the store, frees May and beats up the criminals.
Released three years after the incredible success of "Police Story", this sequel offers equally as much as the original, and maybe even tops it on the field of humor since it included a few deliciously comical moments involving May (excellent Maggie Cheung). As with most movies of Jackie Chan, "Police Story 2" has the same formula: underwhelming storyline and dialogues, which are then compensated thanks to overwhelming battle stunts and action choreography, some of which are again executed with bravura. The sole storyline where some criminals are blackmailing managers with bombs if they don't get ransom money is nothing new, yet Chan manages to make the story seem engaging and to flow it smoothly, giving just enough to please the genre fans. The finale is arguably not as grand as the finale in the 1st film, yet all action sequences are simply great, anyway, showing Chan in often "impossible" stunts. However, luckily, the character of May manages to almost steal the show with her antics: one of the funniest sequences is the one where the angry May is screaming at Kevin, following him as he retreats into the police station, taking no consideration that they have entered the shower room where several naked officers are startled with her entrance into the room, all culminating in the moment where Kevin locks himself in the toilet - while May breaks the door of the toilet to the left, interrupting on a man sitting on the toilet seat, and climbs up to taunt Kevin from above. Another great moment is when three women police officers beat up a suspect in the interrogation room, playing "good cop-bad cop" to the extreme, much to Kevin's shock of their "feminine power". A few heavy handed or clumsy ideas bother (the villain is a deaf-mute person), yet overall this sequel rises to the occasion to deliver another quality film from Hong Kong cinema.
Grade;++
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