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There's some extravagant bloody gunplay, but not much else of interest, in this superior 1987 sequel to Rich & Famous. The new film picks up the story of intramural Chinese Mafia conflict six years later. Fortunately, Chow Yun-fat's character, Chai, comes to the fore in part 2, giving the star a chance to replay his suffering-nobility number from John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. After returning from his self-imposed retirement from gang life, he is stripped of all his worldly goods in agonizingly slow stages, so that he can exact total revenge in a flamboyant Scarface-style siege on the bad guy's fortress headquarters. The underlying theme of "masoch-ismo" that runs through the Chinese gunplay films has rarely been as lavishly indulged. Everybody survives a staggering number of bullet hits in this movie--especially Chow, who must get shot 30 times during the climactic battle sequence alone, yet remains standing. Only Woo's A Better Tomorrow II uses up more blood squibs per foot of celluloid. --David Chute
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