Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		2.5

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 24, 2024

The Inspector Wears Skirts was a perhaps slightly unexpected hit when it was released in cinemas in 1988, and while director Wellson Chin argues in a supplement on this disc that there had "always" been a plan for at least one sequel even when the first film was being shot, the fact that the first film brought in such nice amounts of revenue no doubt helped quickly make that sequel a reality. And "quickly" is the operative word, as Chin also mentions, since he was given the plumb assignment of delivering the feature in order to exhibit it theatrically during Chinese New Year celebrations, which evidently is a prized achievement, but which left Chin with precious little time to get this follow up shot, edited and ready to be seen. The Inspector Wears Skirts II continues with the sitcom-esque antics of a female police squad, and if it maybe has the slight whiff of that oft mentioned "sophomore slump", it's generally as mindlessly amiable as its progenitor.

The Inspector Wears Skirts had the perceived marquee value of offering Cynthia Rothrock as "token Westerner", but she's absent from this enterprise, and as is alluded to in some of the supplements on this disc, the only really featured non-Asian characters in this vignette driven tale are arguably of the villainous quality. The fact that this story begins with a buffoonish dream sequence which doesn't really make sense may indicate that there's a certain slapdash quality to the narrative, and in fact another kind of "slap", namely slapstick, is repeatedly relied upon to deliver supposed laughs.

The "conflict" here is twofold, involving both new female recruits to the "Skirts" aggregation, but also the expected competition with males on the force. This has less of a throughline in terms of story until a rather weirdly late threat, and instead tends to rely on physical shtick for its comedy, to fitful results. The large ensemble cast features Sibelle Hu, Sandra Ng, Billy Lau, Regina Kent, Anthony Carpio, and Kara Wai, and kind of interestingly as is discussed in some of the supplements, some of Jackie Chan's stunt team got to have actual speaking roles in this outing. Either surprisingly or unsurprisingly depending on how jaundiced your particular point of view may be, according to commentator Frank Djeng, this film was even more successful than the first one.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 88 Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The back cover of this release states that this is a "2K remaster from the original negatives". There's a somewhat variant level of palette suffusion on hand in this presentation, with most of the outdoor material popping beautifully and offering some really pretty sumptuous hues, especially primary blues and reds. Things can be a bit more pallid looking in any number of interior scenes, where even flesh tones can be a bit less saturated than in some of the outdoor material. Detail levels are typically very good to excellent throughout. Grain is also a bit variant, and can range from nicely tight to occasionally on the splotchy side. There's no major damage of any import.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 features LPCM 2.0 Mono in either Cantonese or English. The Cantonese track has a more noticeably bright high end, which can therefore mean perhaps less subliminally audible hiss as well as more obvious slight distortion in some of the music cues. The English track lacks the same bright high end, but probably sounds a bit muffled overall in comparison to the Cantonese track. Both tracks tend to show some of the same intermittent break up in the music in particular. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Frank Djeng


• Leading the Top Squad (HD; 12:33) is an interview with director Wellson Chin. Subtitled in English.


• Stuntman Mars Discusses The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 (HD; 6:45) is subtitled in English.


• An Interview with Stuntman Go Shut Fung (Anthony Carpio) (HD; 28:06) is subtitled in English.


• Hong Kong Trailer (HD; 3:38)


• Stills Gallery (HD; 3:39)

Additionally, the keepcase features a reversible sleeve and houses a folded mini poster, and packaging features a slipcover.

Note: There's either an authoring error on this disc or someone made a really strange decision in terms of how the Special Features Menu operated on both a standalone PlayStation and Oppo (it worked fine in my PC drive, which leads me to believe it is probably an authoring error). While my PC drive correctly brought up the supplements when I clicked on Special Features, in my players nothing happened until I hit the down button on my remote after having chosen Special Features, at which point the Audio Commentary and just the first line of the Leading the Top Squad supplement showed up. Repeatedly pressing the down button on my remote then revealed the rest of the supplements, which kind of comically appeared one after the other with each subsequent push of the down button.

The Inspector Wears Skirts 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The original The Inspector Wears Skirts could hardly be called innovative in any way, and in fact it kind of had its own sitcom-ish quality, though that said, this second effort is definitely even more like a made for television movie, or even a pilot for a proposed series. Some of the comedy is agreeable enough, but many of the performers mug incessantly, as if to suggest they're not quite confident in the actual writing. Technical merits are generally solid (video) to arguably improvable (audio), but as usual 88 Films has aggregated some really appealing supplements (even if the disc tries to "hide" them on some standalone players), for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.