《扫毒2：天地对决》

Starring: Andy Lau, Louis Koo, Michael Miu, Karena Lam, Cheung Kwok Keung, Carlos Chan, Michelle Wai, Jun Kung

Director: Herman Yau

DESPITE what that title may indicate, there aren’t all that many drug lords in the follow-up to Benny Chan’s surprise 2013 hit “The White Storm.” Veteran pulp crime drama director Herman Yau picks up for Chan in “The White Storm 2: Drug Lords” and steers far away from the first film’s tale of conflicted cops chasing a drug trafficker in Thailand. Instead, he settles in to concoct a relatively run-of-the-mill cops-and-robbers thriller with few surprises — with the exception of the final gonzo car chase through Hong Kong’s Central subway station.

Why no one has thought to do this before now is a mystery for the ages, but that enjoyably ridiculous sequence and some cheeky hamming by co-star Louis Koo (taking over the mantle of “hardest-working man in show business” with a staggering 18 films on his slate this year) make up for what the picture lacks in narrative logic or editorial flow.

The film starts with a flashback, with Tin (Andy Lau) and Dizang (Louis Koo) working as the right hands of Ching Hing gang boss Nam (Kent Cheng). Tin’s dad was a junkie, and Nam is a Vito Corleone type, refusing to peddle drugs of any type. Of course, Dizang goes behind his back to start dealing, and when he’s found out, Nam orders Tin to lop off a few of Dizang’s fingers. A bitter rivalry is born.

Fifteen years later, Dizang is still bitter, but he’s also one of Hong Kong’s biggest drug lords, and Tin is a “legitimate” business tycoon with a hotshot lawyer wife, Michelle (Karena Lam). Circling Dizang is Fung (Michael Miu), a narcotics bureau detective with a wife who died in a previous drug war. Their lives align when Fung’s daughter begs Tin for help with the traffickers, and feeling guilty, he promptly offers a US$10 million bounty to whoever eliminates Dizang. Fung becomes his bodyguard.

The rest of “Drug Lords” unfolds pretty much along the lines that are expected: The cop and the tycoon become unlikely allies; Dizang and Tin enter into a war of attrition using their disparate methods; and Lam indeed gets fridged. Everything moves at such a rapid clip, Yau, Li and Lee seem to skip enlightening character motivations or shading to make it all run just a little smoother. It is a step up from Yau and Lau’s last collaboration on “Shock Wave” in 2017 — where again Yau exploited a piece of stalwart Hong Kong infrastructure — but proves something of a blown opportunity by sidelining the other drug lords.

A four-way fight could have made things more epic, but the rival slingers, Sister Ca (Cherrie Ying), Cho Ping (MC Jin) and Cho Thai (Jun Kung) are given short shrift. They barely register before they’re sent packing in some manner. On top of that, several threads go nowhere — chiefly the story about Tin’s ex-girlfriend and the troubled son they had, Michelle’s agony over her inability to bear a child and the vigilante bounty.

The real star, though, is car stunt choreographer Gobi Ng’s utterly nutty chase down the escalator into Central Station, around the concourse, onto the platform and into the train tunnel. It’s just crazy enough to be engaging, and visual effects supervisors Yee Kwok-leung, Ma Siu-fu, Leung Wai-man and Ho Man-lok do a great job with the make-believe destruction, never tipping into rubbishy CGI.

The always-charming Koo runs a close second as the slightly unhinged Dizang, sporting a weedy goatee and wielding his mechanical hand like a harbinger of trouble.

The movie is now being screened in Shenzhen. (SD-Agencies)