Project A II (1987)

In Project A II , the sequel to the original Project A , Jackie Chan stars as Dragon Ma, a police officer attempting to keep the peace at the start of the twentieth century. A revolution has begun between the Dowager Empress and a group that eventually leads to communist rule in China. Project A II begins with Mr. Chun as the chief of police. He is the only person who is allowed to carry a gun, but he abuses his privilege by staging his cases. He positions himself close to the scene of the staged crime, then takes credit for stopping it.

Mr. Chun's plans go awry, however, when his superiors discover his actions, in addition to the public learning of his deeds. Dragon Ma takes over for Mr. Chun and finds out that criminal groups have been bribing the police force to stay out of their affairs. In addition to a corrupt police force, Dragon Ma also has to deal with an inept and cowardly group of individuals that refuse to uphold law and order because it might be dangerous. Dragon Ma eventually disciplines the disorderly group and several interesting plot twists keep the movie moving at a somewhat swift pace.

The sets in Project A II are fantastic for the most part, the acting from the overall cast is impressive compared to many of Jackie Chan's older movies, which he filmed on much smaller budgets. The problem with Project A II is not the quality of the movie or the production values, rather the action and excitement. The movie lacks any major fight scenes of interest, but that is still not the only problem. The smaller fight scenes throughout the movie are somewhat boring and unimpressive, not to mention far too short and far between.

The plot itself is well developed, which does keep viewers interested, but the lack of any really impressive action hurts the movie. It is also very difficult to understand what is happening in the movie since the English subtitles are very poorly done. It is often an afterthought to even include them, which is too bad. In a movie with tons of action and great fight scenes, nobody really cares about the dialogue, but in a movie like Project A II it severely hurts the impact of the plot.

Sometimes the subtitles are absurd enough to take viewers out of the environment that the movie attempts to create. For instance, about twelve minutes through Project A II an officer says, "If you piss at ants that's cruelty to animals." Do not assume for a moment that it makes sense in the context of the movie, it has absolutely nothing to do with anything that is said before or after it. It is rather humorous in an absurd way, though.

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