Line Walker 2: Nick Cheung and Jazz Boon on Louis Koo, heroic bloodshed films and police characters
- Line Walker 2 reunites director Boon with Cheung, Koo and Francis Ng for a bigger, louder sequel far more engrossing than the original film
- Boon calls it a ‘Mission: Impossible made by Hongkongers’, while Cheung explains why he won’t stop playing corrupt cops despite the social climate
It is not every day that you see the sequel curse broken in such impressive style.
Line Walker was a mediocre action thriller from 2016, a spin-off from a hit TVB drama series of the same name. Line Walker 2 reunites director Jazz Boon with his lead actors (Nick Cheung Ka-fai, Louis Koo Tin-lok and Francis Ng Chun-yu) for another round of police undercover intrigue – albeit bigger, louder and far more engrossing.
Cheung and Boon – who has been one of TVB’s top directors and producers since the late 1990s – sat down with the Post to discuss the making of Line Walker 2. The film tells a stand-alone story involving everything from international terrorism to child killers, with a good old dose of conflicted nostalgia among “blood brothers”.
While the first film felt very much like a spin-off from a TV drama series, Line Walker 2 is a considerably more cinematic experience and an improvement in most aspects. Has the chance to work with a completely new story proved liberating?
Jazz Boon: The truth is that when I came up with the Line Walker series a very long time ago, I saved up several stories – including those that have been turned into these two films. When I conceived them, I thought I shouldn’t restrict myself to stories about undercover agents in the police and triads – we’ve watched those too many times before.
Line Walker 2 is precisely my original vision: this is a Mission: Impossible film made by Hongkongers. That was not possible on a TV show’s budget, but with the audience’s support, we’re finally able to realise it with this film reboot.