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

Now this is a cool movie, and as Des Mangan says, when we discuss Jackie Chan movies we talk about the action, not the plot: so this is the one where he runs through thick traffic, gets beaten up in a playground by guys with iron bars, and is severely injured in a warehouse brawl at the end. To me that says little, unless you said that it is the one where the warehouse blows up at the end, then I would know what movie was being referred to.After the events in Police Story, Jackie is demoted to traffic cop and the guy that he busted is now out of gaol. The guy is tormenting Jackie so he beats him up in a restaurant and decides to retire, but before he leaves for Bali, he saves a whole heap of people in a shopping mall when they receive a bomb threat. So, he is reinstated and must go after these bunch of people who like blowing things up.This is quite a humorous movie, and poor May (the girlfriend) seems to land up in no end of trouble. She is sent to Bali without a passport, drives into a parked car, and is harassed by gangsters and terrorists. Being the girlfriend of a famous cop is probably not a good idea because they will pick on you to get to him, but that is what May is there for.This is a great little movie, and very funny. I actually think that it is far superior to the original Police Story, which I found to be interesting, but not exciting. But still, since it is a Jackie Chan movie, it is good.

Unfortunately I haven't seen the first film so can't say if this is better or worse, either way this film is a lot of fun. The story might not be the best every but that is okay when the action is so good. As one would expect from a Jackie Chan film there are lots of brilliantly choreographed fight scenes and some spectacular stunts.The film opens with Chan Ka Kui (Jackie Chan) being demoted to a traffic cop because of the amount of damage he caused when arresting a major criminal. Unfortunately for him the criminal he arrested is released because he is terminally ill and his henchman is determined to make life difficult for Ka Kui and his girl friend May. This leads to him getting in a spectacular fight in a children's play ground which in turn leads to him being reprimanded by his superiors. He decides to quit the police and take May to Bali on holiday, of course things don't go according to plan as while he is buying the tickets there is a bomb scare in the mall, even though he has quit the police force he takes control of the situation and evacuates the mall before the bomb detonates. After this he is brought back onto the force in order to investigate the bombers who are demanding a ten million dollar ransom not to blow up another building. As he closes in on them they kidnap May in order to force him to collect the ransom for them, this leads to a explosive show down between Ka Kui and the bombers in a fireworks factory.While the film is dominated by the action there are also plenty of good comic moments such as when May follows Ka Kui into the changing room and harangues him in front of his naked colleagues. The acting was good, Jackie Chan has great comic timing and makes the action look easy, although the out takes shown during the end credits show that it was anything but easy. While there is a lot of action it is of a fairly slap-stick nature so it should be suitable for older children to watch, the main reason not to show it to younger children is that they might be tempted to try and copy some of the stunts such as the play ground fight.These comments are based on watching the film in Cantonese with English subtitles.

This sequel starring and directed by Jackie Chan again fails to have the same impact as its predecessor. Basically, with his unorthodox police methods, Jackie is demoted to be a traffic cop. Despite this, the villain from the last film who he put away is now out, and has vowed to make his life a misery. While he is harassing Jackie and his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung), the police are thinking of bringing Jackie back to help fight a group of bombers who are asking for a $10 million ransom. Also starring Bill Tung as Inspector Bill Wong, Kwok-Hung Lam as Superintendent Raymond Li and Charlie Cho as John Ko. I think the biggest problem is that this film is too chatty, with hardly any comedy, hardly any decent martial arts fights, no relevant thrills, and not enough action or stunt work by Chan, it's no surprise that I dozed off towards the end. Pretty poor!