The 2001 Hong Kong movie Running Out Of Time 2 sprang from the success of its predecessor Running Out Of Time. I have not seen the first movie and cannot compare the sequel to it in story or quality. However from what I can tell, the plotline of this sequel does not build from the original. It is only the main character returning. Suffice it to say, there is enough detail presented in this movie for it to stand alone. I'm sure there are some details about the personality of the main character I'm missing, but from watching it I think I had a pretty strong idea about who and what he was about. In a nutshell I enjoyed the movie, but I wasn't in love with it either.

The story is about a cop who gets caught up in an odd game with some wacky criminal genius. Inspector Ho (Ching-Wan Lau), the star from the original movie, is in the middle of an investigation. He has some of the police officers under his command at listening posts with active wiretaps on a large insurance company's communications. There have been some relatively large insurance claims made against the company in a relatively short period of time. Ho being an experienced detective is suspicious.

Teresa (Kelly Lin) is in charge of a multi-million dollar insurance company and it is about to merge with a larger Beijing company in a matter of days. It is imperative nothing bad happens before the merger is completed, or else the deal will fall through. Unfortunately, a thief (Ekin Cheng) has stolen three valuable artifacts (worth about five million) and the situation poses a problem for the merger. Teresa, not wanting the truth to become public, refuses to acquire assistance from the police (despite her subordinate's recommendations) and desires to settle the situation on her own. Ho has the wiretaps and was able to find out the thief is blackmailing Teresa. This is when he gets sucked into a game that plays out a little like 'Simon Says'.

What happens now is a long sequence of so called games. Inspector Ho is trying to do what he can to keep Teresa's best interests, while at the same time appeasing his cop-conscious mind. This leads to Ho trying to decipher odd puzzle games left by Cheng's character and following his instructions on a long treasure hunt through the streets of Hong Kong.

There really isn't much else to the story and it is clearly not the movie's strength. What gives this movie its edge is its serious tone and how the story includes several moments of dark humor. Some of the situations and characters are so bleak it is funny. This is the one aspect I really enjoyed about the movie, because I continually found myself chuckling. The characters are also presented well. Both Lau and Cheng give superb performances in their respective roles as overly serious good guy and goofy bad guy. While their characters are not very deep, what we get is enough for the movie and the odd relationship that develops between them is another appealing aspect of the story. At one point it doesn't even seem like a cop chasing after a criminal, but two old friends enjoying a game of cat and mouse.

Overall I thought Running Out Of Time 2 was a good movie, but not great. The blurb on the back of the DVD case describes this movie as an action thriller filled with suspense, dark humor, and top notch action. And the thing is you don't really see much of those things, except the dark humor. The movie doesn't move at a fast pace or leave you gripping your sit waiting to see what happens next. Rather, it leaves you with some odd situations, dark humor, and several well played characters. The best way I can describe Running Out Of Time 2 is that it is one of those movies you won't kick yourself for never seeing, but it wouldn't make for a bad watch on a rainy day either.

The DVD
When you first put Running Out Of Time 2 into your DVD player, you are subjected to approximately twelve minutes of trailers. You cannot skip them and are forced to watch them. So if you intend to watch this movie, be sure to put the disc in ahead of time.

Video:
The video is given in anamorphic widescreen enhanced for 1.78:1 ratio televisions. The picture quality looks great. The transfer does an excellent job handling both the dark and light colors. The picture suffers from minor compression artifacts, but generally looks very sharp.

Audio:
The audio comes in 5.1 Dolby digital surround in Cantonese, Mandarin, and dubbed English. The 5.1 tracks sound very good. They were dynamic and took advantage of the surround sound setup quite well. I was quite pleased to find how well ambient sounds (such as rainfall) were incorporated into the surround sound. With the dubbed English track, the voices are loader and seem to boom over the ambient sounds. If you watch this movie, you should use the Cantonese track. This release also comes with subtitles in English and Chinese

Extras:
The first extra and probably the only thing worth your attention is a six minute making of featurette. It features a short interview with both main actors Lau Ching Wan and Ekin Cheng. They talk about their characters and other related thoughts to the movie. The featurette is in Chinese, but there are English subtitles. There other extras are several trailers. They include the Original Hong Kong Trailer, and trailers for films Throwdown, Running Out Of Time, Cop On A Mission, Colour Of The Truth, Soul Guardians, Yaowart, Province 77, and Book And Sword.

Final Thoughts:
Running Out Of Time 2 is an interesting enough movie. It does not offer a very strong story, but instead has several characters and situations that are so odd and bleak they're funny. The movie also does very well with the two main characters and produces an indifferent relationship between them. These aspects are what will keep your attention. Overall Running Out Of Time 2 is a decent movie that you'll probably enjoy if you watch it, but it isn't one that will leave you with the desire to watch it again and again.