Waste of time

Pretty Good

People are voting emotionally.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A sequel in name only to the action-packed TIGER CAGE, TIGER CAGE 2 marks a real highlight of the Hong Kong comedy cop/action sub-genre. Directed by Yuen Woo Ping - undoubtedly one of the best of the Chinese directors and martial arts choreographers - this sequel turns out to be better than the original and indeed might well be the best of its kind.The film features an intensely likable Donnie Yen and an at-her-most-gorgeous Rosamund Kwan as a mismatched couple (a cop and a lawyer, respectively) who run foul of some sinister money launderers who use murder to keep their business private. The end up on the run being pursued by gangsters. Of course, what this inevitably leads to is an incredible amount of expertly-choreographed action and fight sequences. There are the requisite car chases and shoot-outs here, but the majority of the action is hand-to-hand combat, and boy is it blistering.Yen is on top form as a physical fight and his bouts with various opponents are fast and furious. The plot is occasionally slightly muddled (and the dodgy subtitles on the Hong Kong blu-ray I watched hardly helped) but it doesn't matter as this is visual, visceral entertainment throughout. Michael Woods makes his third (and best) appearance in a Chinese film, the creepy John Salvitti is back from IN THE LINE OF DUTY 4, and Robin Shou makes a decent antagonist. Watch out for a surprisingly fine David Wu in support and a cameo from veteran star Lo Lieh as a gangster.

Des Mangan said in the intro to this movie that it was basically all action tied together by a few other scenes. When he said this he was not wrong. Tiger Cage II is not a movie about themes but rather a movie with a nice little plot and a lot of action. Even with this there are still things that one can draw out of a movie to tell us about the people around us.A case full of money has been brought to Hong Kong to be laundered but someone in the firm wants the money for himself so betrays them and tries to get the money. Unfortunately the money is hidden and they think that a cop and a female lawyer have something to do with it, but they do not. Thus the two unfortunates find themselves running away from the law and the criminals as they try to stay alive and clear their names.I guess the major thing that comes out of the movie is how money decides the goals of everybody. This money causes people to betray each other, kill each other, and turn those who were good into criminals. The cop and the lawyer are not criminals but were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately, unlike American movies, the filmmakers reveal a way in which the cop and the lawyer are cleared for the superintendent learns who the guy behind the robbery really is.This movie is simply pure action. There is no reason as to why it is called Tiger Cage II and has absolutely no connection with the previous movie, which was about corruption in the police force. Tiger Cage II is simply a movie with a lot of cool action and one to watch for all of those who love their martial arts and their action.

We all agree that this movie has lots of awesome fight scenes, the story is good enough to justify the ass kickery...but what about the rest? I have only one complaint about this movie and i'm talking about Rosamund Kwan, i have nothing against her, but her character ruined the movie for me, always delivering some very lame (and annoying) humorous scenes (and i usually don't mind about the comical scenes in these movies), i seriously hoped that the villain (played by Robin Shou, yes, the guy who played Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat movies) would have ripped her heart out.Enough with the complaints...anyway, as i said, the film has lots of awesome fights (including one of the best sword fights ever filmed, featuring Donnie Yen and John Salvitti) and there are also lots of cool stunts.Cynthia Khan has a small role in this movie (i know that there are some versions where she has an extra scene), it would have been a much better movie if they made her play the Rosamund Kwan role, Donnie and Cynthia would kick some ass together (maybe, it would have been better than "In the line of duty IV").

First off, apparently there at one point was a different exported version of this movie. I recently watched it on Neftlix and have verified that I watched the original edit of this film but with English dubbing. I wonder if some reviews are based off of the alternate exported version that has a completely different ending. You can see notes on IMDb for the differences between the two which are rather substantial but not without spoiling the ending. I suggest watching it off Netflix if you can. Anyway, I think this film was a lot of fun. Donnie Yen does it again with his amazing martial arts talent and action directing. The fight scenes were an awesome display of his abilities and very enjoyable to watch. I found the characters to be likable and those saying that Rosamund Kwan's character is annoying, well duh she's supposed to be a pain which is why she drives Donnie's character nuts the whole movie. I thought it made for good humor. This movie is from 1990 so it still has that 80's feeling to it but I didn't find it to be overly cheesy or anything. I actually liked seeing that Donnie wasn't a cop this time but rather a retired cop post divorce thrown into one bad situation after the next. Overall I found it to be a fun movie with really well done action/fight scenes.