Running Out of Time 2 (2001)
Directed by: Johnnie To, Wing-cheong Law
Written by: Julien Carbon, Kin-Yee Au, Nai-Hoi Yau
Starring: Ching Wan Lau, Ekin Cheng, Kelly Lin
Available now from Eureka Entertainment
Part Two of Two – Running Out of Time (1999) Review
In the past there seemed to have been an unspoken rule in which hit movies from Hong Kong got weirdly overwritten sequels. Certain key elements, usually major stars, would be lost along the way. In their place were odd story developments that tried to overcompensate for this absence. The likes of Project A Part II and A Chinese Ghost Story 2 come to mind. The charm of the original character dynamics are gone, replaced by convoluted story lines that are fun but don’t quite work. In the case of Running Out of Time there’s an immediate problem – the original premise cannot be repeated. But since well received films demand a follow-up here we are again. It wants to be cool, and it wants to maintain the magic. The slick visual style and the quirky music are still present and correct. However the script and the characters leave a lot to be desired.
The race against time is long over, so instead there’s a story all about… insurance money. Hardly an edge of your seat narrative hook. This time a nameless thief (Ekin Cheng) has stolen three artefacts from a company and finance boss Teresa (Kelly Lin) needs to cover up the theft. If information about the crime ever gets to the press her top investors will pull out. Again it’s not exactly nail-biting stuff. The theft isn’t even shown so there’s no big heist sequence to set the stage. There are no exciting crimes that re-introduce Inspector Ho (Ching Wan Lau) either which is just as baffling. But most confusing of all is how his bumbling superior Wong (Shiu Hung Hui) got a promotion off-screen for some reason. They clearly couldn’t get Andy Lau back without pulling some kind of identical twin shenanigans ala A Better Tomorrow II. But this guy is still on the team?
It’s film that contains a lot of these weird moments, even more so than the first instalment. There’s no secondary villain this time around, so instead we’re left with a thief who owns a bald eagle. Is the bird nicknamed Baldy as a callback? I’d like to think so. He’s also a magician, although this information isn’t revealed until nearly an hour of the story has passed. There are no master of illusion set pieces here. I guess it’s supposed to give away his child-like nature, or his well meaning intentions. But his motives and his skills are so underwhelming that it might has well not be part of the story at all. Maybe the insurance company could be considered the real antagonist, since the thief has a heart of gold. But it’s not written that way. Instead it’s all strangely muddled, with little in terms of real pacing or suspense.
The thief just wants a lot of cash for a mystery good cause, and he’s set up various hoops for the police to jump through. The artefacts themselves are not important, which echoes the jewellery plot in the original. There are also more misdirects and bomb scares along the way, to give the vague sense of a threat. Why he also sets up a phony suicide attempt on top of a skyscraper is never clear, although it introduces a strange recurring game of heads and tails. The negotiator sent to help is a gambling addict who owes money to some seedy characters. The thief never loses the coin toss, and later the negotiator finds him in a café and keeps playing. Perhaps it’s all just a way of making him seem benign, but the details and motives are also strangely vague.
The other recurring element is the pet eagle for some reason. In about two shots its a real animal, with occasional slow motion for added coolness. For a huge stretch in the middle of the film it’s a computer generated one. You were expecting a caper about chases, explosions and counterfeit money? The cops spend a lot of time forging copies of the ransom as part of the thief’s twisted game. But suddenly the focus shifts to Inspector Ho and Teresa driving around the city following a CGI bird. Teresa’s assistant turns out to be an ornithology major, with a group of bird watching buddies on call for just such an occasion! Perhaps the eagle is symbolic of the thief and his nature. But why so much time is devoted to the thing is one of the film’s mysteries. At least the bomb at the police station was mildly exciting compared to this oddball set piece.
It also hurts that Inspector Ho and his new nemesis don’t really have any chemistry, and hardly any time is devoted to simple character dynamics. There’s an interesting foot chase at least, during which the thief stops off at an ice-cream van for a 99! But when it just keeps going, on foot and then by bicycle, things run out of steam. Unless you were desperate for a Cantopop interlude it’s hardly an exhilarating second act action scene. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a moment of irreverence as much as anyone else. But a lot of the time it just feels like filler, a total inverse of the original film’s economic thrills. All the characters just start to feel dumb when they’re running around without any lives on the line, or any kind of clear stakes at all. It’s odd that the thief is also a magician when his plans are never really utilise sleight-of-hand in a clever way.
But then so much of this is odd and lacking ingenuity. Beyond a random third act scene that reveals all of this is a Christmas film it lacks charm and energy. Perhaps this is a result of it having two directors and three credited writers. It all just kind of stumbles along, going through the motions without having a clear goal in mind. Even Inspector Ho’s affable nature is barely put to good used this time around. He certainly doesn’t have any connection with Teresa which is a shame. What happened to his original unit and their ill-fitting uniforms? There are dozens of questions like this left hanging, including those surrounding the importance of the artefacts and the suicide negotiator’s financial woes. It’s a mixed bag of tricks, some that are kind of interesting, others that are just odd, but none of them ever form a satisfying whole. It’s entertaining in a sporadic sense but that’s never enough.
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