Another ‘Chase,’ but with a different bunch
Chasing the Dragon II: The Wild Wild Bunch Rated: Unrated; Running time: 100 minutes; Language: In Cantonese with English subtitles;
1⁄2 (out of 5)
When is a sequel not really a sequel?
When it’s the Hong Kong cop thriller “Chasing the Dragon II: The Wild Wild Bunch,” a follow-up to the
2017 film “Chasing the Dragon” though it features none of the same stars (namely Donnie Yen or Andy Lau), characters or storyline.
It does have the same directors (Jason Kwan and Wong Jing) and, like its predecessor, is based on a true story, and it takes place in the same universe: Hong Kong in the late
1990s, when the impending changeover from British to mainland Chinese rule apparently opened a societal gap in which organized crime could flower like a hothouse plant.
But that setting and the film’s title make “Chasing the Dragon II: The Wild Wild Bunch” sound infinitely more exciting than it actually is. Instead, it’s an efficiently made and routine police action-drama that has some effective moments but doesn’t add up to anything that hasn’t been done many times before.
Louis Koo (“Paradox,” “P Storm”) is Sky He (aka He Ziyang), an undercover cop and explosives expert who wants some time away from his high-pressure job. Of course, in true “I try to get out, but they pull me back in” fashion, his friend Li Qiang (Simon Yam), an inspector with the Hong Kong Police Force, convinces him to help with a difficult assignment: infiltrating the kidnapping gang run by the odious Logan Long (Tony Leung Ka-Fai, “The Lover”).
What follows is everything a story like this demands — car chases, shootouts and trying to stop an explosive device by cutting the right wire — but there’s little fresh here. Koo makes for a solid central figure, and it’s always good to see Tony Leung Ka-Fai, a near-40-year veteran of the Hong Kong film industry, still holding his own. (He’s not to be confused with Tony Leung Chiu-wai who was in several Wong KarWai films and probably is better known among Westerners.)
Yet, as directed by Kwan and Jing, the action scenes are more perfunctory than pulse-pounding while the drama rarely rises above the expected. The generic, English-language rock on the soundtrack turns out to be fitting for such a generally faceless work.
Still, the original “Chasing the Dragon” was a huge hit in Asia and, unless fate is especially unkind to this sequel, no doubt there will be a third film. Let’s hope the title and ambition are more evenly matched next time.