I had been tempted to turn it off a couple of times before then, but stuck with it, because this was Andy Lau after all. Actually I managed to endure 1 hour and 4 minutes of the ordeal, then I simply had enough and got up to turn off the movie. This movei from writer and director Jing Wong was boring, so very, very boring. Well, apparently not everything that Andy Lau stars in turns to gold. But still, it was a Hong Kong movie and had Andy Lau in the lead, so of course I ended up sitting down to watch it. Perhaps Wong Jing should have left the story alone after all.įirst of all, I don't think I've actually seen the first movie here, so I had no idea what to expect from the 1992 movie 'Casino Tycoon II' (aka 'Do sing daai hang II: Ji juen mo dik').

There's also a little too much melodrama with all the offspring and love interests too. But you don't really feel that Lau is ever in danger and the laidback approach works against it. The bad guys are clear cut and the various assassination attempts at well staged, with a gruesome attack in the second half being a highlight. You can't fault the actors, but the film doesn't have much in the way of drive or intrigue.

It opens on a broadly comic note featuring Dennis Chan as a small-time scammer before moving into a slow-moving character piece. Wong Jing returns to write and direct, but I found this by far the weaker film of the two, lacking the momentum and grittiness that made the first film so good. Andy Lau is by now the boss of the casino and seems to hold infinite power, but various foes are stacked against him and his personal relationships continue to cause problems. CASINO TYCOON II is a direct sequel to the first movie, set some 20 years later and picking up some plot strands along the way.

Casino tycoon movie review