Gen-Y Cops

Year:2000
Director:Benny Chan Muk-Sing
Cast:Stephen Fung Tak-Lun, Sam Lee Chan-Sam, Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Rachel Ngan Wing-Sze, Richard Sun Kwok-Ho, Christy Chung Lai-Tai, Paul Rudd, Ron Smoorenburg, Mark Hicks, Jude Poyer, Cheung Tat-Ming, Vincent Kok Tak-Chiu, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Eric Kot Man-Fai, Lee Lik-Chi, Reuben Langdon
Description:
The return of the Gen-X Cops is an eagerly awaited affair,
but this time out they call the film Gen-Y Cops.
And after seeing the movie, there are plenty of "whys".
Why are Y2K and Jack missing?
Why doesn抰 anyone mention them? Why did Christy Chung
turn in her worst performance ever as the perky police
chief? Why the lame and uninteresting female characters
? Why the horrible acting? Why
the bad special effects? Why is Edison Chen the frontman
and not Stephen Fung and Sam Lee? Why did American actor
Paul Rudd agree to appear in this picture, and why did
he leave his acting chops back in the states? And why
did Benny Chan decide to make this half-baked sequel?
The bigger, badder Gen-Y
Cops jettisons the cloying commercialism of the
first film for a film that is practically a parody of
modern action flicks. Returning heroes Match
and Alien are assigned to guard a local police
technology convention and are upset at the crappy assignment.
Things go awry when US robot RX-1 goes on a rampage,
courtesy of evil software engineer Kurt ,
who抯 mad that his project was taken away from him by
the US Government. He hatches an elaborate plan to hijack
RX-1 and sell him to the highest bidder. To do so he
enlists his unwitting friend Edison , who抯
just partnered up with Match and Alien.
Kurt抯 plan also involves speaking
in the worst 搒treet�English ever and apparently using
Rufio from Hook as his acting role model. Richard
Sun is blisteringly awful as bad guy Kurt, and simply
begs to be dubbed into another language. Edison Chen
fares much better than Sun, though his 搒treet�English
is god-awful, too. While the two wannabe street punks
are going toe-to-toe, the FBI agents are chasing everyone
else. Led by a blond Paul Rudd, these FBI guys have
no idea what procedure is and proceed to run rampant
all over HK. Maggie Q co-stars as FBI agent Jane, and
she could be the most uninteresting new female lead
of 2000. Her charisma-less debut is matched by Rachel
Ngan, who partners up with the Gen-Y Cops because the
filmmakers wanted to add another girl. What抯 sad about
all of this is that Grace Yip as Y2K was 300 times more
interesting than either of these women, and she wasn抰
even that interesting to begin with. A sigh would be
appropriate right about now.
However, before I imply that
this is the worst film ever made, I should clarify:
Gen-Y Cops still manages to entertain because
it抯 so incredibly frivolous. The numerous action sequences
can be entertaining, and Stephen Fung and Sam Lee are
an amusing and likable pair. Lee does overact like a
madman, but he proves to be incredibly funny and the
film抯 saving grace. Despite all the negatives heaped
on the film, Gen-Y Cops has some entertainment
value. Yeah, it抯 still total and complete B-movie crap,
but for someone looking for 100 minutes of brain-dead
entertainment, there are certainly worse movies out
there.