Mad Mission 2 - Heißes Pflaster Unterwelt

The first sequel to Hong Kong's Aces Go Places, it is a story about European assassin Black Gloves (Joe Dimmick), who is seeking to avenge his brother White Gloves' death against reformed criminal King Kong (Samuel Hui) and Detective Albert "Baldy" Au (Karl Maka). While trying to evade Black Gloves, the duo are framed for robberies by the Hong Kong Mafia, who have their own plans against King Kong and Baldy.

Like the previous movie, the plot is fast-paced and full of adventure. However, the story has more corny jokes and silly action in it, from King Kong suffering the consequences from inadvertently crashing Baldy and Supt. Ho's (Sylvia Chang) wedding to the random appearances of the mental impatient who thinks he is an FBI agent (Hark Tsui). The romantic subplot between King Kong and Juju (Ting-Huan Wang) was also silly; there is virtually no chemistry between the two.

Though the silly and wild action is in abundance, the highlight of the movie is probably the duel of the robots (between the bad guy's towering machine hunk and King Kong's group of miniature flying toy robots). They make you feel you are watching a Transformer's movie, but the special effects were actually pretty good as they used real machinery versus CGI and, while the action is over-the-top, the robot sequences are pretty fun to watch.

Sam Hui and Karl Maka (in his thick Taishan-ese accent) continue to make a hilarious duo and had great on-screen chemistry. And, Sylvia Chang continues to add on the humor with her fiery portrayal of Supt. Ho.

Overall, the movie does not surpass the original but it's worth a watch at least once.

Grade C+