Thunder Cops 2 (1989) Review

“Thunder Cops 2” Chinese Theatrical Poster

Director: Jeff Lau
Producer: Wong Hoi
Cast: Sandra Ng Kwan, Shing Fui On, Stephen Chow, Ann Bridgewater, Sunny Fang, Wu Fung, Jeff Lau, Lam Siu Lau, Joh Chung Sing, Eddie Ko Hung
Running Time: 97 min. 

By Paul Bramhall

The sheer volume of movies cranked out of Hong Kong in the 1980’s somewhat belies belief, and perhaps understandably, the on-the-fly nature of so many of them sometimes results in confusion. Such is the case for Thunder Cops 2. It should be simple enough – it’s the sequel to Thunder Cops right? Well, yes and no. In a nut shell, director Jeff Lau’s 1988 sophomore feature Operation Pink Squad proved to be a hit, and within a year a sequel was in the works, predictably titled Operation Pink Squad 2. Both fall into the action comedy genre, with the sequel going for a supernatural slant. For reasons we’ll likely never know, for some home video releases Operation Pink Squad 2 was known as Thunder Cops, and for reasons we’ll definitely never know, during the same year Lau would also grace our screens with Thunder Cops 2.

There are some tenuous connections between the trio. Apart from all being directed by Jeff Lau (who also turns up in a supporting role in all 3), each are headlined by Sandra Ng, with a supporting cast that features the likes of Ann Bridgewater and Wu Fung, and action direction duties going to Yuen Clan member Yuen Cheung Yan. However much like the Tiger Cage series, in each instalment everyone is playing a different character. Unlike the Tiger Cage movies though, which at least kept their theme of being no nonsense cops and robbers fight flicks, Thunder Cops 2 quickly puts to rest the theory of there being any thematic connection.

Lau also enlists the services of Stephen Chow, here in an early screen appearance. The pair would collaborate again in 1995, when they’d make Out of the Dark and the 2 A Chinese Odyssey movies together (although thankfully Chow didn’t return for the 3rd instalment, belatedly made in 2016). In 1989 Chow was still very much in the process of refining his comedic persona (he’d star alongside Jet Li in Dragon Fight the same year), compared to both Lau and Sandra Ng, who’d already established themselves to HK audiences as being associated with the comedy genre. So for Thunder Cops 2, you get the distinct impression the 3 of them sat in a room together, and decided that before they find themselves typecast for the rest of their careers, they’d have a crack at making a gritty and mean spirited revenge flick. Audience expectations be damned.

Or at least, they sat in a room together and had that conversation after the first day of filming. Indeed proceedings start out like many an 80’s Hong Kong flick, with the rather light hearted sequence of Ng’s bumbling traffic cop attempting to arrest a group of illegal street market vendors. In one of those only in a HK movie moments, she then inadvertently stumbles across her father policeman’s (played by Eddie Ko) operation to arrest an armed drug dealer (played with a manic intensity by Sunny Fang). Looking to get in on the act, after the bust goes awry Ng finds herself able to sneak up on Fang from behind, and attempt to apprehend him by passing off the eggplant being held to his head as a gun. Comedy shenanigans all the way, except the eggplant trick doesn’t work, and Fang ends up sending her father to an early grave.

Cue opening credits, and by the time we’re back it’s 1 year later. Gone is the bumbling traffic cop, and in her place is a shoot to kill badass hell bent on avenging her father, one that’s all too happy to manipulate her junkie informant to help her track Fang down. That sure escalated quickly. It’s safe to say that Ng’s role in Thunder Cops 2 is definitely an anomaly in her career, with a Jeff Lau at the helm who seems to have been influenced by the work John Woo was doing around the same time (The Killer came out the same year).

Watching Ng let loose with a Beretta in each hand shouldn’t work, but somehow it does, and Lau shows an unusual cruel streak in the violence he orchestrates. A confrontation on the steps of a wedding hall (newlywed couple included), ends with the bride and groom caught in the crossfire with tragic results, reflecting an aesthetic that doesn’t shy away from showcasing the civilian collateral damage. Lau and action director Yuen Cheung Yan opt to film the bullet ballets mostly in slow motion, with the brief parts that play out in real time acting as explosive bursts of visual punctuation, which for the most part works. There’s an almost ethereal like quality to the bullet riddled mayhem, almost as if the slow motion is meant to represent time slowing down, and it creates a unique feel that heroic bloodshed aficionados will surely get a kick out of.

This is done particularly well in a scene which see’s Ng rescue Chow from a group of assailants. The whole scene plays out from Chow’s perspective who’s been knocked to the floor, as he watches Ng pump the bad guys full of lead looking like a sort of dreamy angel of death. It’s a cool scene, and a distinctly different approach from other movies that were looking to ape the John Woo aesthetic around the same time, such as City War. Speaking of John Woo, it also can’t be denied that Chow’s limp addled brother to Shing Fui On’s drug dealing pimp, is undoubtedly modelled after Chow Yun Fat’s physical disposition in A Better Tomorrow.

The action isn’t only limited to gun fights though, with the appearance of Ng’s partner played by Taiwanese stalwart Lin Hsiao Lu guaranteeing at least one scene of quality fisticuffs. Hsiao Lu starred in many of the late 80’s Taiwanese kung-fu flicks, usually alongside Alexander Lo Rei, and can be seen showing off her considerable talents in the likes of Kung Fu Student and Emergency Police Lady (both from the same year). She’s perhaps best known though as The Child of Peach, in which she played the peach powered son (which part of that title do you want to discuss first?) across 4 movies. Here she gets a hard hitting knockdown, drag out brawl against two assailants which takes place on a construction site, and while it’s the only real fight scene of the movie (unless you count Sandra Ng vs. Stephen Chow), it more than delivers. Impacts, hard falls, and some impressive choreography are all present and accounted for.

When it comes to everything else though, Thunder Cops 2 doesn’t really hit the mark. While it’s well known that many Hong Kong movies had their scripts made up as they went along during the golden era, here it’s never felt truer. There’s a real feeling that, outside of the plot outline of a police woman looking to avenge the death of her father, everything else was simply made up on the fly. Notably Stephen Chow doesn’t even turn up until over an hour in, and he’s never really around long enough to feel like a significant character, despite his appearance in the finale being reliant on the audience being invested in him. There’s something reassuringly familiar about seeing Shing Fui On turn up in a movie like this, however his character here is simply a means for Ng to get to her father’s killer, and subsequently also ends up receiving short thrift.

Special mention has to go to Ann Bridgewater, who as a junkie informer is about as far away from her sexy turn in Full Contact 3 years later as you can imagine. Playing a character who’s opening scene involves being pummelled (note: not in a violent way) by Shing Fui On while Sandra Ng watches on from inside a closet, she definitely puts her all into the role, even if the movie over all isn’t worthy of it. In fact everyone in Thunder Cops 2 looks like they want to be there, so the blame for its incohesive nature would seem to lay largely with Lau himself, a theory that certainly isn’t outside the realms of possibility when you look at his overall filmography.

By the time the credits abruptly roll on Thunder Cops 2, which let’s face it isn’t such a surprise in Hong Kong cinema, I was left with a distinct feeling that I’d watched an unruly and disorganised mess of a movie, with some sprinkles of brilliance thrown in haphazardly. At one point Chow refers to Ng and himself as “one bitch and one cripple”, which perhaps would have been a more fitting title, although certainly no less misleading. Thunder Cops 2 is carried along on Ng’s shoulders (as is Chow in one scene), and for the most part she keeps it watchable, now with the added retrospective ingredient of nostalgia. Is it a good movie though? Not really.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5.5/10