Powerful

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I was a bit reserved about this film because rarely the sequels are as good as the prequels. After seeing it I have to say that it's not only as good but even better.The action is still the same. There are many fight scenes and stunts performed at the same high level as they are in the first film. The pace is well-balanced and goes at the right speed without being too fast to follow or too slow to bore.What makes the difference is the story. As opposed to the first film which is a little straightforward this one has many layers and they are combined into one major story that involves all the characters and resolves all the minor stories without taking away the classy humour or the amazing action. The film is certainly not predictable and that is what makes it interesting to follow.I rate this one higher that the first one because it offers a better balance between action scenes, humour and dialogue.

This is the following to ¨Project A¨ in which a honest Hong Kong coast guard officer battled pirates on the high seas . Moving sequel , ¨Jackie Chan's Project A part 2 (1987)¨ in which Dragon is back with a new set of action and played by Maggie Cheung , Carina Lau and again produced and directed by Jackie Chan along with Raymong Chow and his Production Company called Golden Harvest . This piece period that is well set contains numerous nice physical routines . There Dragon Ma , an upright coast guard officer ,Jackie Chan , fighting against nasties in "old Hong Kong". Reluctantly, the Coast Guard is assigned the mission to fight revolutionaries . Dragon is now transferred to be the police head of Sai Wan district, the Police Commissioner (Bill Tung) assigns him a dangerous project to face off with a gangster kingpin , anti-Manchu revolutionaries ( Rosamund Kwan , Maggie Cheung), some runaway pirates , Manchu Loyalists and a corrupt police superintendent named Chun (David Lam , also producer) . Dragon Ma is helped by some good polices and they take on nasty corrupt officials in the government and seek to thwart the Dragon's efforts to vanquish them . At the end takes place a comic Kung-Fu battle between Jackie and the villain in a rousing final. Chinese costume drama with plenty of over-the-top action , thrills , ingenious stunts , tongue in cheek and amusing music . This exciting movie is packed with adventure , intrigue , unstopped action , overwhelming stunt-work and lots of fights but with humor . Jackie Chan is top notch as one army man fighting a group of heinous nasties and as always he makes his own stunts like is well showed . Awesome , incredible stunts and brief comic touches , as usual . The lighting-paced storyline slows down at times , but frantic action sequences make up for it . Spotlights movie include spectacular brawls , a Chinese torture with a giant block , Jackie jumping down a building , on a roof , impressive and interminable fights with Chan dangling and downing , a breathtaking final struggle and other extraordinary action sequences in overwhelming style . This is an acceptable action movie distinguished by nicely cinematography of the spectacular sequences , and contains agreeable sense of humor such as previous entry . Jackie Chan usually forms couple to notorious actors as Sammo Hung and actresses as Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh . In this outing Jackie teams up again to prestigious Chinese actress Maggie Cheung , a fine action star in their own right and with a prestigious and successful career such as she has proved in ¨Hero , China box , Clean , In the mood for love and 2046¨ and a many others . ¨Project A , 2¨ is a passable action movie distinguished by ferocious sequences , and packs silly sense of humor as well as Jackie's former and subsequent entries . Furthermore , moving and thrilling original musical score fitting to action . The picture achieved success in China and around the world . However , Jackie Chan's failed at Box-office in his American debut ,¨Battle creek brawl¨ . Chan pays overt homage to two of his greatest influences as Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd . 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 80 days¨ and ¨Rush hour¨ trilogy , and the recent ¨Karate kid¨. Of course , his biggest 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. ¨Project A, 2¨ is lavishly produced by the great Asian producers Raymond Chow and Golden Way Ltd films production and middlingly directed by Jackie Chan . Rating : Acceptable and passable but inferior to the first part, the picture has its sensational moments here and there , but also with abundant humor touches mostly provided by its agile star , the super Jackie . It's a regular action film for enthusiast of the genre though only for Jackie fans .

It is curious to me that it is not the first film that is not in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, it is this sequel, but I suppose I can agree with that in part, from star and director Jackie Chan. Basically it continues where the previous film left off, where the pirate Captain (Sam Pou) was killed by marine police officer Dragon Mao (Chan), and the rest of the bad guys want to get revenge. Dragon himself meanwhile has been transferred to Sai Wan to take over from Superintendent Chun (David Lam), but of course he has a good record. Later they meet flower selling Yesan (Maggie Cheung), with her cousin Beattie/Carina (Carina Lau) who is a member of the Chinese revolutionaries headed by Dr Sun Yat-sen. I just know that there is some kind of thing involving police accepting bribes, gangsters and more pirates, Imperial agents, and Dragon in the middle of it not making the Police Commissioner (Bill Tung) very happy with his occasional mistakes. The pirates, and possibly the gangsters with them, do manage to catch Dragon a few times and try to get rid of him, but his fighting skills obviously help him to escape and save the day in the end. Also starring Rosamund Kwan as Miss Pak, Sam Lui as Mr. Man, Regina Kent as Regina, Governor's Daughter, Yao Lin 'Charlie' Chen as Awesome Wolf, Kenny Ho as Shi King, Mars as Jaws, Ben Lam as Brawns and Mickey as Cobra. Chan is again fantastically skilled in the action sequences, filled with great Kung Fu moves and surprising stunts, you even see the repeated best bits of the previous film and ending outtakes, I may not have understood the story, but for the fights and comedy, this was a fun martial arts adventure. Jackie Chan was number 41 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars. Good!

Sequels are a capricious lot with most nowhere near the stature of the original. Sometimes you find a sequel that is considered better than the original, some critics (such as John Charles) have stated that Project A2 is better than the original, I disagree somewhat but this movie is still a worthwhile follow-up and fits well in the output of brilliant Hong Kong action cinema in the 1980s as well as Jackie's own oeuvre. I do wonder how with such an awesome release of great films that his later films were not as good. He only has directed two films in the 1990s and none past that, but he has had much clout in many of the films where he is not officially the director.Earlier in 1987 Jackie had brain surgery following a disastrous fall in the filming of Armour of God. This encouraged him to work on his next film close to home. This did not encourage him to stop risking his life and his stunt team for our amusement. What resulted is a smash hit at home that eclipsed the original in box office tallies (31 million HK dollars compared to 19 million for the original).Jackie Chan is once again police officer extraordinaire Dragon Ma and he is ordered to work with "Three Wan" Superintendent Chun (Lam Wai, Royal Warriors) who is the only Chinese police officer allowed to have a gun yet is thought to be staging arrests to make himself look better and ignoring the crimes of a triad lord named Tiger Au (Michael Chan Wai-Man, Dragon Lord). Apparently Chun has too much power to be taken down directly, but he is relieved of the Sai Wan district (now he is "Two Wan") which Dragon Ma takes over. This inefficient and corrupt office will soon get a makeover and there is a great scene where three officers, who do not know who they are dealing with, attempt to assault Ma to teach him a lesson about complaining about police officers. He soon has that district ship-shape and Tiger Au taken care of. The fight choreography and stunts with Tiger and his men are quite awesome. My favorite stunt was a beautifully brutal fall from the second floor into a large vase and that vase did not appear to be soft.Meanwhile a couple of subplots are happening. There are pirates who have survived from the first film who are looking for revenge and food. Then there are revolutionaries including Maggie (Maggie Cheung, In The Mood For Love) and (Rosamund Kwan, Casino Raiders) who are trying to raise funds for Dr. Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the Qing Government as well as government operatives who are trying to find these rebels. Throw in a mixture of corrupt Hong Kong and British Cops as well as legitimate ones and you have a stew that is getting a bit too many ingredients, but yet still seems to coalesce. This works well when there is a Marx Brothers influenced scene (the Marx Brothers have done this type of scene a few times with The Cocoanuts (1929) being the first) at Maggie's place where everyone is looking for someone while hiding from someone else. Many weeks were spent on this scene alone and the effort certainly shows.There are several faults with the film. There is a certain didactic nature that creeps in the film that seems a bit out-of-place – especially one small speech towards the end that Jackie gives when dealing with the Mainland revolutionaries and the extremely easy conversion of the pirates that survived from the first film. Female characters are once again underused and under-appreciated, especially Maggie Cheung. I was not as satisfied with the continuance of the plot as much as the first film either. The individual scenes dominate my feelings for the film instead of thinking of this movie as a cohesive whole. I do not fault the film for not being able to have Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao like the first though (I have heard the main reason behind this was that those two were filming Eastern Condors, but I do wonder if Jackie could have waited a small while to get them to perform in this – they would work together for the last time the following year in Dragons Forever), but they are missed.I found this to be quite an enjoyable and well-made film and it is rightfully regarded as one of the better comedic action films of the 1980s. This film is also quite good in a few unexpected places. The art direction is superb (Eddie Ma Poon-chiu), the costumes are exquisite, the cinematography is good and the movie looks quite authentic. But the stunts, comedy and the action is what I remember this film for. There is a chase involving a handcuffed Dragon and Chun that is superb (part of the axe throwing scene would be used in Shanghai Noon). The last twenty minutes is full of awe-inspiring hits, falls, chili-peppers as a mouth-mace (Jackie writes in his autobiography about how he used real peppers in this scene; you can see him in a lot of mouth pain during the outtakes at the end) and is a worthy conclusion to this movie. The most famous stunt from this sequence is his homage to Buster Keaton from Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) with the exception that there is no hole and only a weak section where his head pops through.Fans of Jackie and/or Hong Kong action cinema should consider this a must own and watch. I certainly do.