Shock Wave 2 (2020) Review

“Shock Wave 2” Theatrical Poster

Director: Herman Yau
Cast: Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Lau Ching-Wan, Ni Ni, Tse Kwan-Ho, Philip Keung Hiu-Man, Ron Ng Cheuk-Hai, Marc Ma Yu-He, Kenny Wong Tak-Ban
Running Time: 120 min.

By Paul Bramhall 

In 2017 Herman Yau looked to reinvent himself once more, this time as a director of big budget action blockbusters with Shock Wave, a bomb disposal thriller with Andy Lau as the lead. Armed with the biggest budget of his career, Yau put it to good use and was rewarded with the most commercially successful movie of his career in return. Pitting Lau’s squeaky-clean bomb disposal expert against a revenge seeking bomb specialist who’s set his sights on blowing up Hong Kong’s Cross-Harbour Tunnel, despite its bombast (no pun intended), Shock Wave felt a little too anaemic for its own good. There’s some solid action but its all bloodless (including a decapitation), the characters have potential but are weighed down by either being overly courageous or one dimensionally evil, and a storyline that could have benefitted from shades of grey feels simplistically black and white. Still, none of that stood in the way of it receiving a sequel in 2020.

Shock Wave 2 marks the first time for Yau to direct a sequel to one of his own movies (not including the Troublesome Night series) since 2009’s Turning Point and 2011’s Turning Point 2. In the intervening years he’s continued to work on his craft as an action genre filmmaker, first with the atrocious The Leakers in 2018, then by helming the thematic sequel to Benny Chan’s The White Storm in 2019 with the superior The White Storm 2 – Drug Lords. Shock Wave 2 follows the same route as The White Storm 2 by also being a thematic sequel rather than a continuation of the original, as anyone who’s seen Shock Wave will have guessed by the return of Andy Lau. This time around he shares top billing with fellow thespian Lau Ching-Wan (Victim, Integrity), with the pair playing best buddy bomb disposal experts on the same team. When these guys aren’t disposing of bombs, they’re doing the ice bucket challenge together.

I’m going to be controversial, I find Lau Ching-Wan to be massively overrated as an actor, and if it wasn’t for his work with Ringo Lam and Milkyway Image in the mid 90’s to early 00’s I don’t think he’d be as highly regarded as he is. His performance here didn’t change that opinion. But back to Shock Wave 2! Armed with double the size of the budget than the original, Yau gets straight to work in the opening scene by having a train rigged with explosives go careening into Hong Kong International Airport. The explosion that follows blows it completely off the map in a scene which owes a nod to a certain flashback sequence in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but fear not, it’s just a sequence to grab our attention and the airport is perfectly fine. The spectacle of the opening scene is a microcosm for the first half of Yau’s sequel, which barrels from one tense and explosive (literally and figuratively) scenario to the next in breathless fashion.

Lau may be playing a different character here, but from the moment we see his bomb disposal expert comfort a terrified cashier clinging onto a live grenade by giving her a slightly awkward hug of reassurance, it’s clear that he may as well be the same morally upright guy we met in the original. Or is he? During an attempt to defuse a bomb left in an apartment Lau loses part of his leg. Although you’d think such an experience would be traumatic, he seems completely unfazed by the loss of a limb, and sets about enthusiastically rehabilitating himself so he can get straight back into disposing those pesky bombs. We even get a HK style training montage set to uplifting music as we watch Lau bench press, learn to run, and generally be an awesome guy. Unfortunately disappointment awaits when he applies to get reinstated, with the only roles the force are willing to give him being limited to desk jobs.

Skip 5 years later, and Lau appears to be operating under the codename Blizzard for a terrorist organisation called Vendetta, who are working towards a catastrophic terrorist act known only as Resurrection Day. Or is he? Gone is the smile at every challenge thrown his way persona of before, and in its place is a brooding pill popper who seems shifty even when he’s just sipping a coffee in a café. When we see Lau appear to plant an explosive device at a crowded event being held in an upmarket hotel, everything indicates he really has put his heroic days behind him and become a bad guy, until his suspicious behaviour gets spotted by security. The unplanned skirmish leaves him caught up in the blast and knocked out cold, and when he wakes up he has no memory. All clues point to him being responsible for the bomb, but Lau refuses to believe he could have become a terrorist, and goes on the run to uncover the truth for himself.

The ensuing escape from hospital is Shock Wave 2’s action highlight, as action director Nicky Li crafts a thrilling sequence that sees both the cops (to question him) and the terrorist group (to break him out) convene on the building at the same time, set off against Lau’s desire to not be caught by either of them. Minus his prosthetic leg, Lau hops, slides, and throws himself all over the show as a gunfight breaks out between the cops and the terrorists. After a handy stop-off in the hospital’s prosthetics center, the sequence segues into a chase through the streets and rooftops of Hong Kong which feels like vintage HK action. I couldn’t resist a smile when it threw in a part that sees Lau escaping along the rooftop of a pedestrian bridge. More so than the epic CGI created explosions and spectacle, it’s the physicality of this extended pursuit which got my pulse racing the most.

It’s unfortunately also where Shock Wave 2 jumps the shark, as the chase ends with Lau bumping into his ex-girlfriend, a counter-terrorism officer played by Ni Ni (The Thousand Faces of Dunjia, Wu Kong). Ironically the pair display more chemistry in this scene than any of the scenes in which they’re actually supposed to be in a relationship. She asks him if he can continue his mission, implying that he may not be a terrorist after all and could be deep undercover. Or is he? Frankly, the plot revelations that the later half of Shock Wave 2 spends the majority of its time bombarding the audience with, and then attempting to unravel, are laughable. Some of the twists I’d dare say threaten to border on Murderer level unbelievability in their brazenness. The plot dives into Total Recall-esque territory with talk of memory implants, which in fairness would be the only logical explanation for some of the events that unfold. 

We get a flashback of Lau visiting main bad guy Tse Kwan-Ho (72 Martyrs, Full Strike) in Nepal, who we meet standing in the airport arrivals lounge with a placard which reads Blizzard, Lau’s supposed terrorist codename. Not suspicious at all. They then make nefarious plans together while skydiving. Yes, skydiving. It’s a standalone dialogue driven scene, but for some reason Yau must have thought it’d be a great idea to have the conversation take place while falling through the air. I actually laughed out loud. The increasing number of flashbacks continue to derail Shock Wave 2, as we see Lau’s relationship with Ni Ni and friendship with Chang-Wan (who barely registers despite his co-star billing) fall apart thanks to Lau’s constant shouty outbursts. There’s a message here somewhere about how society treats the disabled, but it’s buried under so much ridiculousness that its impossible to take seriously. 

Throw in plot motivations which include characters no longer sending each other Christmas cards, and a terrorist cell introduction scene in which each nickname is given an accompanying sound effect, by the time the finale rolls around that involves a van being hooked up to a helicopter you’ll feel like anything is possible. Whatever Yau was attempting to achieve it’s safe to say has missed the mark by a good few hundred miles, but as a curiosity piece of filmmaking Shock Wave 2 entertains, just not for the reasons it intended. Special mention has to go to the special effects team responsible for Lau’s missing leg, as while there’s never any question the explosions are CGI, Lau’s disability never looks anything other than authentic. Much like Lau’s character has lost a limb, Shock Wave 2 would appear that Herman Yau has lost the plot, and that’s the genuine tragedy. 

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 4/10