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Review: Line Walker 2: Invisible Spy (使徒行者2：諜影行動) (2019)
This was ok. It was an action thriller that wasn’t super deep in my opinion. It did have the benefit of a solid main cast which made it more watchable than it otherwise could have given the simple storyline. I felt that this movie was more interesting than the first Line Walker movie.
Spoilers.
Story
Tsai and Dee grew up in an orphanage as best friends. Tsai was captured by a secret organization and trained to be a cutthroat spy/assassin that would one day be assigned to infiltrate police organizations all around the world.
Dee grew up to be a Hong Kong police officer named Ching To, but he never forgot his childhood friend and was always trying to unover more information about such a secret organization. Ching reported to Yip Sir. Yip Sir had a former subordinate called Cheng Chun-yin, who now worked for another department.
After the capture of a hacker named Yiu Ho-yi, Ching and Cheng were sent to Myanmar to search for more data about that secret organization. They had to retreat and leave Ching behind. They did find a hard drive, but it was empty.
Later, it was revealed that Ching was alive, and the hard drive was actually in his possession. Cheng, controlled by the secret organization, was sent to barter for the hard drive, with fellow organization henchman Demon, who would keep an eye on him. Ching and Cheng confirmed their identities as childhood friends. Then, Yip Sir showed up and there was a shootout. Demon killed Yip Sir.
Ching and Yiu continued on their quest to uncover and release evidence of the secret organization’s child abduction and abuse to the world. Cheng and Demon were to stop them. However, Cheng was revealed to ultimately be against the organization (who had killed his wife). Cheng indirectly asked Ching to save his daughter, and helped him in their final showdown.
Cheng and Yiu brought down the secret organization, cleverly protecting Yiu so that they couldn’t unlock their systems. Cheng and Ching fought and managed to kill Demon.
In the end, it seemed that both Cheng and Ching survived.
Production
As mentioned, I liked this movie more than the first Line Walker movie. We know our main cast is solid, but I think the script also didn’t veer too much into side stories and kept it focused on the main plot. The action was decent.
Characters
Ching To/Dee
Ching To grew up in an orphanage where he was nicknamed Dee. He was best friends with Tsai and they were both very smart. In an ambush by people from the secret organization, Dee called for Tsai to help him, resulting in Tsai getting captured and Dee falling down the hill but safe.
As an adult, Dee tried to find Tsai and the secret organization though he hadn’t succeeded yet. But once he met Cheng Chun-yin, he was pretty sure. He left all sorts of clues, like playing with the complex rubik’s cube, and trying to question Cheng when he was least suspecting.
Ching had taken the hard drive in Myanmar, but he gave the blank one to Yip Sir. After being left behind, he uncovered the information on the real hard drive, and sent that information to the commissioner, who had an anti-terrorist section that he ran independently of the police. Ching recruited Yiu to help them take down the baddies.
Ching kidnapped Cheng but found out that he was Tsai and let him go. In their next encounter, Cheng wanted to buy the hard drive from Ching but he declined. We found out that at that time, Cheng had secretly sent a message to Ching, amounting to Cheng begging Ching to save his daughter.
Ching continued on his work with Yiu to uncover the data in the secret organization, at which they were successful. Ching had saved Cheng’s daughter beforehand, and finally, the two of them defeated Demon. The end was a bit ambiguous, but I guess Ching just got closure about his friend.
Cheng Chun-yin/Tsai
Cheng was kidnapped by the secret organization as a child and trained to be a cruel and cutthroat spy. As an adult, he was also a cop. Although he also trained under Yip Sir, he joined another department, and it seemed he also had a more distant relationship from Yip Sir.
In a flashback we found out that Cheng had married and had a daughter and he ran away from them. The organization killed his wife as a punishment, and told him that he just had to work for five more years. So Cheng had been working on their behalf for a while.
In a scene where Ching kidnapped Cheng, Cheng got the upper hand and got control of the gun but didn’t shoot Ching. Ching also the scar on Cheng’s body that he got when he was a child, while being kidnapped. Ching let Cheng flee.
The organization became more cutthroat after the hackers got in, taking Cheng’s daughter hostage. Cheng followed their orders, but we saw that he asked Ching to save his daughter, even if it meant getting himself killed. In the end, they worked together and succeeded.
As the secret organization seemed to fall by the end, Cheng was free of his captors and he had his daughter too. But it was still a lot to take in since he’d been under their control for a while.
Yip Sir
Yip Sir didn’t have a huge role, I feel like he was just there to connect Ching and Cheng and highlight their differences. He was clearly a lot closer to Ching than Cheng, despite having mentored them both, and I think that was meant to show us that Cheng was shady. Yip died in the end, taken out by Demon in a shootout.
Yiu Ho-yi
Yiu was a hacker that was being hunted down. She was saved by Ching and Yip and taken into custody. She told the police about the hard drive that sent them to Myanmar. When the hard drive was revealed to be empty, Cheng thought she’d betrayed them somehow, but Yiu refused to talk.
Ching captured Yiu and showed her the anti-terrorist group he was a part of, asking her to join him. She revealed that she’d locked the information systems of the secret organization, using her own retina scan as the password and that was why the secret organization couldn’t kill her (questionable logic).
Yiu revealed that her younger sister had been captured by the secret organization and forced into prostitution from a young age. She tried to find her sister but was too late, only able to find her corpse. Thus, she wanted revenge.
Yiu worked with Ching to continue hacking into the secret organization’s systems. They organized a switch in which they’d send Yiu to a secret location to continue hacking. The secret organization thought they had captured her and caught her retinal scan. However, it turned out that there was another decoy. The real Yiu had stayed in the car the whole time, and a false recording had been shown to the organization, convincing them that they had captured the real Yiu and to let their guard down, and for the real Yiu to finish the hack job. Sorry if this sounds confusing lol.
Anyway, Yiu was the important piece in bringing the secret organization down.
Mr. Tung
Mr. Tung was kind of the big bad for this movie, though I’m not sure that he was the big boss of the secret organization. He was the one keeping tabs on Cheng. He had tracked down Cheng years ago, killing his wife. And now he was holding Cheng’s daughter hostage to get him to save the hard drive.
The office of the secret organization was raided and he was killed in a blast.
Demon
Demon was Mr. Tung’s henchman who was sent with Cheng to carry out duties. He was portrayed as kind of a crazy psychopath but I thought the portrayal was a little edgelord-y at times. Anyway Demon was loyal to Mr. Tung. He killed Yip Sir, and he ultimately tried to take down Ching and a Cheng who had defected, but was killed by a bull.
Overall
Ultimately this was a surface level action thriller. I wasn’t expecting anything deep, but I will say that the movie was put together well enough that it didn’t feel like a slog to get through it.
Spoilers.
Story
Tsai and Dee grew up in an orphanage as best friends. Tsai was captured by a secret organization and trained to be a cutthroat spy/assassin that would one day be assigned to infiltrate police organizations all around the world.
Dee grew up to be a Hong Kong police officer named Ching To, but he never forgot his childhood friend and was always trying to unover more information about such a secret organization. Ching reported to Yip Sir. Yip Sir had a former subordinate called Cheng Chun-yin, who now worked for another department.
After the capture of a hacker named Yiu Ho-yi, Ching and Cheng were sent to Myanmar to search for more data about that secret organization. They had to retreat and leave Ching behind. They did find a hard drive, but it was empty.
Later, it was revealed that Ching was alive, and the hard drive was actually in his possession. Cheng, controlled by the secret organization, was sent to barter for the hard drive, with fellow organization henchman Demon, who would keep an eye on him. Ching and Cheng confirmed their identities as childhood friends. Then, Yip Sir showed up and there was a shootout. Demon killed Yip Sir.
Ching and Yiu continued on their quest to uncover and release evidence of the secret organization’s child abduction and abuse to the world. Cheng and Demon were to stop them. However, Cheng was revealed to ultimately be against the organization (who had killed his wife). Cheng indirectly asked Ching to save his daughter, and helped him in their final showdown.
Cheng and Yiu brought down the secret organization, cleverly protecting Yiu so that they couldn’t unlock their systems. Cheng and Ching fought and managed to kill Demon.
In the end, it seemed that both Cheng and Ching survived.
Production
As mentioned, I liked this movie more than the first Line Walker movie. We know our main cast is solid, but I think the script also didn’t veer too much into side stories and kept it focused on the main plot. The action was decent.
Characters
Ching To/Dee
Ching To grew up in an orphanage where he was nicknamed Dee. He was best friends with Tsai and they were both very smart. In an ambush by people from the secret organization, Dee called for Tsai to help him, resulting in Tsai getting captured and Dee falling down the hill but safe.
As an adult, Dee tried to find Tsai and the secret organization though he hadn’t succeeded yet. But once he met Cheng Chun-yin, he was pretty sure. He left all sorts of clues, like playing with the complex rubik’s cube, and trying to question Cheng when he was least suspecting.
Ching had taken the hard drive in Myanmar, but he gave the blank one to Yip Sir. After being left behind, he uncovered the information on the real hard drive, and sent that information to the commissioner, who had an anti-terrorist section that he ran independently of the police. Ching recruited Yiu to help them take down the baddies.
Ching kidnapped Cheng but found out that he was Tsai and let him go. In their next encounter, Cheng wanted to buy the hard drive from Ching but he declined. We found out that at that time, Cheng had secretly sent a message to Ching, amounting to Cheng begging Ching to save his daughter.
Ching continued on his work with Yiu to uncover the data in the secret organization, at which they were successful. Ching had saved Cheng’s daughter beforehand, and finally, the two of them defeated Demon. The end was a bit ambiguous, but I guess Ching just got closure about his friend.
Cheng Chun-yin/Tsai
Cheng was kidnapped by the secret organization as a child and trained to be a cruel and cutthroat spy. As an adult, he was also a cop. Although he also trained under Yip Sir, he joined another department, and it seemed he also had a more distant relationship from Yip Sir.
In a flashback we found out that Cheng had married and had a daughter and he ran away from them. The organization killed his wife as a punishment, and told him that he just had to work for five more years. So Cheng had been working on their behalf for a while.
In a scene where Ching kidnapped Cheng, Cheng got the upper hand and got control of the gun but didn’t shoot Ching. Ching also the scar on Cheng’s body that he got when he was a child, while being kidnapped. Ching let Cheng flee.
The organization became more cutthroat after the hackers got in, taking Cheng’s daughter hostage. Cheng followed their orders, but we saw that he asked Ching to save his daughter, even if it meant getting himself killed. In the end, they worked together and succeeded.
As the secret organization seemed to fall by the end, Cheng was free of his captors and he had his daughter too. But it was still a lot to take in since he’d been under their control for a while.
Yip Sir
Yip Sir didn’t have a huge role, I feel like he was just there to connect Ching and Cheng and highlight their differences. He was clearly a lot closer to Ching than Cheng, despite having mentored them both, and I think that was meant to show us that Cheng was shady. Yip died in the end, taken out by Demon in a shootout.
Yiu Ho-yi
Yiu was a hacker that was being hunted down. She was saved by Ching and Yip and taken into custody. She told the police about the hard drive that sent them to Myanmar. When the hard drive was revealed to be empty, Cheng thought she’d betrayed them somehow, but Yiu refused to talk.
Ching captured Yiu and showed her the anti-terrorist group he was a part of, asking her to join him. She revealed that she’d locked the information systems of the secret organization, using her own retina scan as the password and that was why the secret organization couldn’t kill her (questionable logic).
Yiu revealed that her younger sister had been captured by the secret organization and forced into prostitution from a young age. She tried to find her sister but was too late, only able to find her corpse. Thus, she wanted revenge.
Yiu worked with Ching to continue hacking into the secret organization’s systems. They organized a switch in which they’d send Yiu to a secret location to continue hacking. The secret organization thought they had captured her and caught her retinal scan. However, it turned out that there was another decoy. The real Yiu had stayed in the car the whole time, and a false recording had been shown to the organization, convincing them that they had captured the real Yiu and to let their guard down, and for the real Yiu to finish the hack job. Sorry if this sounds confusing lol.
Anyway, Yiu was the important piece in bringing the secret organization down.
Mr. Tung
Mr. Tung was kind of the big bad for this movie, though I’m not sure that he was the big boss of the secret organization. He was the one keeping tabs on Cheng. He had tracked down Cheng years ago, killing his wife. And now he was holding Cheng’s daughter hostage to get him to save the hard drive.
The office of the secret organization was raided and he was killed in a blast.
Demon
Demon was Mr. Tung’s henchman who was sent with Cheng to carry out duties. He was portrayed as kind of a crazy psychopath but I thought the portrayal was a little edgelord-y at times. Anyway Demon was loyal to Mr. Tung. He killed Yip Sir, and he ultimately tried to take down Ching and a Cheng who had defected, but was killed by a bull.
Overall
Ultimately this was a surface level action thriller. I wasn’t expecting anything deep, but I will say that the movie was put together well enough that it didn’t feel like a slog to get through it.