I'm not sure why everyone's hating on this. I'll say that the original succeeded due to several factors: firstly, it was (beside Sean Lau and Benz Hui) Andy Lau who carried everything in the movie as he's popular among the audience, secondly the story was unique and fresh and went out from trends, and thirdly the movie had wonderful supporting cast to back the movie up. Here To takes the cat-and-mouse element, injects it in the movie and treats it differently yet it's as though the audience doesn't care after a while because the concept is now partly and it's been changed into a bit different of genre. To summon the differences, the original is more serious and uptight added with a bit of dark humor to accompany the moody as well as mystical tone of the movie, while this movie is lighter in nature, less serious/dark and features more dark humor that accompanies the ironic tone of it. But for me I think the whole sequel thing, where sequels expands more on what the originals left off or show for the better things to come, is getting so old and tiring that that itself is what brings them down and viewers expectations. From what I understand, To always tries to avoid standards and concepts and creates ideas by himself (and his team) and in RUNNING OUT OF TIME 2 he does exactly that, which I think leaves great impressions when it comes to his intended vision (nothing wrong going against that).

As usual, I can always depend on Sean Lau with his charisma as well as strong acting skills when he's on track, making an outstanding performance as the negotiator who uses his brains and skills to catch up with his main antagonist and facing lots of complications throughout the movie (courtesy of Benz Hui and Kelly Lin) during his job. I usually don't care about Ekin Cheng and his movies (except for the first three YOUNG & DANGEROUS movies where he was quite decent) but in this movie it must be said that he's great, probably his only great performance ever, and holds his own against the more effective players (Sean Lau, Benz Hui etc). Benz Hui and Lam Suet also turn into great performances, providing the humor mostly which is appreciative enough to do the movie justice. In general, actresses don't get a whole lot to do in To's movies but as of late, that began to change (when they started to cast new actresses or new talent) which is evident through Kelly Lin's performance. As always, she's been doing great in every movie she's done for Johnnie To/Milkyway Image ever since (FULLTIME KILLER although I don't like the movie, TRIANGLE and MAD DETECTIVE) and here she's no exception doing her best with her acting and carrying her portrayal in the right way and comes off looking great and convincing when she acts her characters out. And last but not least, credit def goes to Johnnie To and his always successful production which made it all happen. The man never disappoints, has yet to run out of ideas and is still working very hard to keep the HK movie industry alive. Hats off!

Overall, RUNNING OUT OF TIME 2 is yet another satisfying piece of filmmaking produced by Milkyway Image that's worth watching.