Bambole e botte

The Five Lucky Stars, played by Sammo Hung, Richard Ng, Stanley Fung, Eric Tsang and Charlie Chin, return in this action-comedy sequel. Charlie Chin's character, Herb, makes a cameo appearance only and is replaced by his brother, Pagoda (Kiu Wai Miu). They get themselves involved in an illegal drug operation plot, where an informant is assassinated by the drug lord, and is instructed by Chief Insp. Barbara Woo (Sibelle Hu) to protect the informant's friend Yi-Ching (Rosamund Kwan) while she and her police team attempt to bring down the illegal operation.

The main plot is loosely tied together and the film contains various subplots that were quite silly - from the Lucky Stars' vacation in Thailand with a bunch of tour girls to Sandy's (Richard Ng) meeting with a witch doctor, and from cops Muscles (Jackie Chan) and Ricky (Yuen Biao) high intensity fight with a gang of arm dealers to the Lucky Stars' attempts to woo Yi-Ching. It gets quite annoying at times when the movie strays away from the main plot, but what made up for it is the huge all-star cast, its numerous martial arts action scenes, humorous one-liners and just class Hong Kong-style comedy.

I remember first watching some parts of this film when I was a kid and was pretty entertained by it. The appearances of the martial arts trio of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao and Andy Lau was neat stuff and, of course, it was cool seeing the Five Lucky Stars in a sequel again.

With such a large cast of characters, it's fun seeing how each contribute to the story. The film is not as entertaining as the original "Winners and Sinners" film, but it has more fun and action than the second film. Despite the loose plot, the filmmakers really packed a lot of stuff in this flick.

Grade B-