Rating: **
Review Date: 11/15/00
Alternate Title: Thunder Cops
Director: Jeff Lau
Cast: Sandra Ng, Billy Lau, Anne Bridgewater, Cheung Man, Wu Fong,
Yuen Cheung Yan, Shing Fui On, cameo by Jeffrey Falcon
A sequel to the entertaining "Operation Pink Squad" (1988) that throws a heavy dose of comedy and horror into the mix. The Pink Squad (Sandra Ng, Anne Bridgewater, and some other Asian beauty) gets assigned to go undercover as Japanese hostesses in order to break up a counterfeiting ring led by Shing Fui On. They are also aided by the Captain's niece, played with exuberance by a very young and extremely cute Cheung Man, who ends up stealing the show (at least for me). Sandra and Billy Lau are now married, and Billy is convinced that his wife is having an affair with the police Captain (typecast Wu Fong) as the result of some silly miscommunication. He spends the first half of the film devising fiendishly amusing ways to punish the adulterers, and even fantasizes that he's Chow Yun-Fat from "The Killer" (1989) at one point. During the sting operation, the girls' new headquarters are in a haunted apartment that Buddhist monk Yuen Chueng Yan is in the process of exorcising. One of the ghosts manages to get away and wreaks all sorts of havoc on all the main characters. After numerous mishaps, our heroes finally manage to cut off the ghost's head, which just makes her mad. Now the good guys are being chased around by a headless body and a flying head! As luck would have it, the head falls into the villain's (Shing Fui On) bag, and he runs off with it thinking it's the counterfeit printing plates. More silliness ensues. Finally, in the last twenty minutes, all of the heroes band together and banish all of the evil spirits back to hell.
A typical lamebrain HK comedy, but some of it is actually quite funny due to Jeff Lau's direction and the comedic expertise of the cast. (Billy Lau and Sandra Ng are just naturally funny) The spooky elements are nicely done, and the physical comedy gags work well in a "Scooby-Doo" sort of way. Unfortunately, things really start to fall apart in the last thirty minutes of the film when the heroes attack the flying head with a squadron of remote control helicopters packed with explosives. WAY too over-the-top for me, and it just gets sillier from there. There's also a completely out of place obligatory kung fu fight in the middle of the film between Jeffrey Falcon and some other guy, which is very nicely done but laughably out of context. All of the women in the film are great and fun to watch, but I would have liked to see them kicking some ass instead of running and screaming so much.
Notes On The DVD Release: Inexplicably, the Jeffrey Falcon fight scene and the helicopter attack sequence are cut out of the DVD version, which is extremely unfortunate. Track down a VHS or laserdisc version instead.