Luk ding gei II: San lung gaau

Lone'er strikes back and this time, she's back for revenge on Wilson Bond for ruining her plans during the first movie. Personally, I think that this movie was better, although less funnier, than the first one. With several hot young wives and being the Emperor's right hand man, life seems almost perfect for Wilson until a new enemy emerges from the shadows.

The Royal Tramp Volume Two (1992) is the second half of the Wong Jing epic that starred Stephen Chow as Wilson Bond, the intrepid whorehouse employee turned society member. Thanks to the events in the first half of the film, Wilson and his cohorts are on the run. Now a full fledge member of the Heaven and Earth Society and having two wives you would think that life couldn't get any better for Wilson. But with two imperial armies after him you would think that he'd stay in hiding. Now it's a showdown between him and Paul Chu's forces. Who'll win this final battle?

This second half of the ROYAL TRAMP epic also Stars Brigette Lin, Chingmy Yau, Cheung Man, Fennie Yuen, Michelle Reis, Damien Lau and Nat Chan. Directed and written by Wong Jing. Fight direction by Ching Siu-Tung. More funny stuff in this period piece.

Highly recommended.

Despite finding the distinctly Asian humour hard to comprehend AND struggling to follow the plot (none of which was helped by my DVD's diabolical sub-titles), I gave the first Royal Tramp a reasonably generous rating of 6/10 thanks to its sheer craziness.

Part II of the Royal Tramp saga is also fairly wacky, but with the plot's complex political wrangling being even more incomprehensible than before (bad subs not helping once again) and the perplexing 'mo lei tau' humour and slapstick even more low-brow, this one is likely to prove something of a chore for those who, like me, aren't schooled in the many nuances and complexities of Chinese culture.

Some bonkers violence (including an exploding horse, multiple decapitations and an impalement on a dragon statue's claw) and quite a bit of fanciful wuxia martial arts (including the Luk Hop fighters, who are controlled like puppets and armed with deadly golden rings) help to break up the tedium, but overall I just didn't find the Royal Tramp experience as entertaining second time around, even with the welcome presence of quite a few very lovely Hong Kong actresses (Chingmy Yau, Brigitte Lin, and Michelle Reis, plus Fennie Yuen and Vivian Chan as the Shang'er twins).

I wasn't a big fan of the first ROYAL TRAMP film but I'm afraid to say that this follow up is even worse than the original. Stephen Chow and most of his cast members return for another spoofy wuxia story but there's less action here and more mugging humour which is sure to turn off viewers old and new. Chow feels out of sorts, sometimes a supporting act in his own film due to the size of the supporting cast, but what's alarming is that a wealth of talent (Paul Chun, Sandra Ng, Natalis Chan, Brigitte Lin) fail to make any headway with the scattershot scripting. This is literally the kind of film that I can't remember a single thing about just a day after watching it...

I give this title one star less than I gave to Royal Tramp. This sequence is a funny comedy, non-sense and a bit sexual. Not as much unexpected as the first movie, but still recommend to watch.