Gen-Y Cops (2000)


	Gen-Y Cops		Return to Review Archive - G
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	Stephen Fung, Maggie Q, Edison Chan, Rachel Ngan, Sam Lee and Richard Sun
	Year:	2000
	Director:	Benny Chan Muk-Sing
	Action:	Li Chung-Chi
	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
	The Skinny:	Style and action save Benny Chan's overblown sequel. Returning cops Sam Lee and Stephen Fung manage to shine amidst the middling special effects and the poor new acting "talent."
	Review by Kozo:	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 (Grace Yip and Nicolas Tse) missing? Why doesn’t 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 (Maggie Q, Rachel Ngan)? 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 (Fung) and Alien (Lee) 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 (Richard Sun), who’s 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 (Edison Chen), who’s just partnered up with Match and Alien. Kurt’s plan also involves speaking in the worst “street” 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 “street” 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’s sad about all of this is that Grace Yip as Y2K was 300 times more interesting than either of these women, and she wasn’t 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’s 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’s saving grace. Despite all the negatives heaped on the film, Gen-Y Cops has some entertainment value. Yeah, it’s 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. (Kozo 2001)
	Awards:	20th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards • Nomination - Best New Artist (Edison Chen) • Nomination - Best Costume Design (Yu Ka-On) • Nomination - Best Action Design (Li Chung-Chi) • Nomination - Best Sound Effects (Tsang King-Cheung)
	Availability:	DVD (Hong Kong) Region 0 NTSC Mega Star/Media Asia Widescreen Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks Dolby Digital 5.1 Removable English and Chinese Subtitles

		images courtesy of Media Asia
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