| Jeff Lau reunites his main cast (Jacky Cheung & Ricky Hui) for the sequel to his very energetic original. Energetic being one of the great, big compliments on The Haunted Cop Shop. The sequel sees Cheung and Hui alongside their superior (Woo Fung also reprising his role) trying to put together a crack team of vampire busters at a haunted military camp. No one told them about the haunted aspect though and it's struggles from day one. Best way to learn really...
That Jeff Lau manages to maintain such a frantic pace without losing sight of the entertainment value (even though this type of film is very uniquely Hong Kong so your Hollywood movie fan friends may scratch their heads) is a testament to his particular skills. While thoroughly silly, low-brow and downright childish, Lau has a great pulse on the energy to his horror-comedy, even delivering dependent scares and gore along the way. Billy Lau returns as the loopy twin brother of his character from the first film. The reveal is not quite on par with Chow Yun-Fat's return in A Better Tomorrow II but Lau is good fun. The subplot of Ricky Hui's predicament as a half-man, half-vampire (he only got one bite you see) threatens to be a boring echo of a similar plotline the actor was faced with in Mr. Vampire but Jeff neatly avoids that and makes it an worthwhile inclusion as part of the comedy. Also with Charlie Cho, Sandy Lam and Barry Wong. |
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