In the action category this is a letdown from the first installment. There's a couple of well- played fight sequences but after a while scenes with one guy fighting off an entire army with his fists gets a bit tiresome. There's one great escape which is up to par with the original. But besides being an average chop shop flick, there's something very confusing and disturbing about the whole basic assumption this film is based on. What are we teaching our young people, besides to risk their necks jumping off buildings to duplicate the stunts in the movie?
Action flicks are about the action. Having a couple of actors who are proficient in their moves is an essential element, and here we have 2 pretty good martial artists. At least by Hong Kong movie standards. The backstory, the universe the story is set in, are usually just pegs to hang the action sequences on. Some story of good guys against bad guys. Cops versus criminal gangs and dope dealers, or as in some Chinese historical versions, Chinese patriots against invaders and imperialists. Here the moral landscape is confusing at best and morally distasteful at worst. Here we have a bunch of multicultural criminal gangs who live in high- rise blocks off the profits of their shady dealings and government dole who are painted as the good guys against a combination of cops and private security conspirators. Whose side are the cops on? Hard to tell. Are they just pawns in a relentless struggle between ethnic gangsters and other, more elite criminals?
Here ethnicity is reduced to style. Skinheads fight along side of Arabs, Gypsies, and Black Nationalists to preserve their right to welfare. In the end they join with their fellow style- conscious multiculti ethnic brothers and sisters to blackmail the French government into giving them even better living accommodations. So our heroes Tomaso (Rafaelli) and Leito (David Bell) are fighting alongside the poor criminals against the rich criminals to preserve and expand government handouts for the poor criminals. No doubt they all want government to pay for their tattoos which seems to be their main means of expression and their reason to exist. The President of France easily capitulates to their demands because France is a welfare state, don't ya know. Bad behavior must always be appeased and rewarded. And certainly it is the duty of government to pay for the lifestyles of the shiftless, the gangsters and the just plain weird.
Action flicks are about the action. Having a couple of actors who are proficient in their moves is an essential element, and here we have 2 pretty good martial artists. At least by Hong Kong movie standards. The backstory, the universe the story is set in, are usually just pegs to hang the action sequences on. Some story of good guys against bad guys. Cops versus criminal gangs and dope dealers, or as in some Chinese historical versions, Chinese patriots against invaders and imperialists. Here the moral landscape is confusing at best and morally distasteful at worst. Here we have a bunch of multicultural criminal gangs who live in high- rise blocks off the profits of their shady dealings and government dole who are painted as the good guys against a combination of cops and private security conspirators. Whose side are the cops on? Hard to tell. Are they just pawns in a relentless struggle between ethnic gangsters and other, more elite criminals?
Here ethnicity is reduced to style. Skinheads fight along side of Arabs, Gypsies, and Black Nationalists to preserve their right to welfare. In the end they join with their fellow style- conscious multiculti ethnic brothers and sisters to blackmail the French government into giving them even better living accommodations. So our heroes Tomaso (Rafaelli) and Leito (David Bell) are fighting alongside the poor criminals against the rich criminals to preserve and expand government handouts for the poor criminals. No doubt they all want government to pay for their tattoos which seems to be their main means of expression and their reason to exist. The President of France easily capitulates to their demands because France is a welfare state, don't ya know. Bad behavior must always be appeased and rewarded. And certainly it is the duty of government to pay for the lifestyles of the shiftless, the gangsters and the just plain weird.