[Review] “Tiger Cubs 2” (By Miriamfanz)
Tiger Cubs 2 <飛虎 II>
Hong Kong TVB Drama 2014
Producer: Lam Chi Wah
Genre: Police, Action
Rating: 
Cast: Joe Ma, Linda Chung, Him Law, Oscar Leung, Mandy Wong
If Tiger Cubs II proved anything, it is that TVB cannot make a good sequel. Everything that made the first series enjoyable – the action, the adrenaline rush, the brotherhood and the brilliance of the SDU – is gone. It is replaced with immaturity and incompetence. The bad guys (including a group of handicapped people) ran circles around this supposed “best of the best” squad. In the first series, the SDU always came back with mission accomplished. In the sequel, I can’t remember a case where they didn’t fail in some way. Even the guest stars paled in comparison to the original, with only Nancy Wu and Johnson Lee as the biggest names.
The cases themselves had potential, but the ideas were poorly executed. The criminals could do whatever they wanted against the ineffective SDU team. But the SDU would always manage to take them out in the end with ridiculously convenient ways. The plot holes turned the whole series into a big joke. The punch line is of course the finale with the SDU getting run down at their own headquarters until they receive divine intervention by way of a bubble. The overarching case about Linda’s blown undercover identity was muddled among all the other things that were happening.
Unlike the original series, which focused mainly on the action, the sequel tried to incorporate more conflict and emotion. That turned out to be the biggest undoing because every single character became annoying to watch. Ah Lai (Him Law) was immature, with his stubborn defence of his colleague and the poor handling of his relationships. Chin Sir (Joe Ma) was too laid-back as his team was falling apart and never even tried to explain himself. Ah Yuen (Oscar Leung) spends far too much time grieving. Ah Keung (Mandy Wong) was weak. And Madam Chung (Linda Chung)… she was in a league on her own. It is beyond me how someone of her mental fitness could pass the test to become a police officer again.
The acting from the cast makes the series twice as difficult to watch. Linda’s performance can only be described as torture for the audience. It was a nightmare seeing those bulging eyes and clenched jaw. Her acting was as fake as the scars on her body. Joe was majorly lacking on the emotional scenes and had zero chemistry with Linda. Oscar lost his charm from the original series and was trying too much to force his signature winks in. Him and Mandy are relatively better than the rest, although they need to lighten up. Benjamin Yuen was unnoticeable except in one early episode. Timmy Hung does not leave much of an impression either. It says a lot when the best performances actually came from the guest stars, including Pal Sinn, Jade Leung and Nancy Wu.
Rating: 2.5/5 Flying Tigers? More like Tiger Prey.
The review is written by Miriamfanz, a Contributing Writer at JayneStars.com. Visit Miriamfanz’s blog!
I’ve heard how terrible the sequel was, and boy…the rumors were spot on. I saw one episode and was extremely disappointed. Your summary pretty much said it all.
My concerns? Linda. What happened to her? Watching Linda as a madam made me appreciate Jessica so much more. Heck…even Sonija, Yoyo, and the likes were so much better as a madam, in general. The current fadans are really limited in their roles.
Linda was horrible, her eyes looked weird and always have that shocked constipated expression all through the drama.
hahahha…the way you define her expression
Linda is lousy actress
her good performances are few and far in between….
After watching this series, I don’t like her any more
Linda Chung is so damn ugly. She doesn’t deserve to be an actress. She should quit acting. One ugly actress.
To me, this is one star series. They had a good prequel to follow, good characters developed from the first one, actors/tresses with potential and high hope, and following fans form TC1. They blew all that up! Not in a good, suspenseful, awesome explosion. It was the crappy, weak and pitiful “grenade” (the exact same one that Him used a villain’s body to “shield” everyone in the last episodes).
The script was just plainly horrible. Was it the same people who wrote the first one? Where were the suspense and epic villains? Where was the logic? Where were engaging cases? Where were the awesome SDU members? The characters went 180, lost all their charms and turned into naggy little boys. The acting pool deflated, from the SDU to villains. I always think Joe is an okay actor, though I can’t remember if he ever “clicked” with any actress in his series. BUT him and Linda (as actor/ress and characters) were definitely the worse pairing with negative chemistry. Their “love” was illogical, out of nowhere, and forced. Then again, the whole series felt that way. This was not TC. This was a group of teen boys at Summer Camp where they played with bubbles, plastic-bullet riffles, and grenade-pretend firecrackers… SMH.
Linda is only suitable for roles like innocent and sweet type!! I dont knww why they would pick her to be in this series its not her type her acting in this is so forceful like she forcing to be angry
Spot on review. It was so bad I stopped at 2 so I only remember the original series >_> this sequel has never happened for me. And I never really like/dislike Linda, she was ok in my book, now she’s sliding to the “>_> not liking very much lol”
There was no chemistry between Linda and Joe. Linda’s acting here was terrible. I understand what she was trying to portray but failed miserably. She should’ve watched Claire Danes from Homeland.
Nancy Wu did a wonderful job on her character, versatile actress.
really like Linda’s acting all these years but not very satisfied with her performance in TC2 except only in ep 1, she did quite well. But it’s good that Linda got to try roles out of her comfort zone. However totally disagree with those saying that Linda is only suitable for sweet and innocent roles b/c in AJCL and TGOL her bad girl roles were well-portrayed.
But it seems like Linda has lost it? She seems so disconnected from her characters in her recent performances. It seems like she is stuck somewhere and has yet to find a way out.
Agree with you Hannah. I found something supposed to be natural is missing in Linda’s acting recently. Probably she focused more on music: album, concerts, JSG…
Totally agree with Winnie and Hannah, she needs to let go her thought of getting TV Queen Award, then her natural acting will come back. I’m also getting bored of her hairstyle. She should try short hairstyle and she may look more cute, young, and fresh.
Yeah..But I can totally understand if Linda has the thought because as an artist, you still need recognition for your work. It doesn’t have to be TV Queen but some kind of recognition or achievement for all your effort. Lots of actresses in her generation like Nancy Wu or Kate Tsui got noticeable awards but all she got for 10 years is just Most Improved. So the disappointment is reasonable.
wow…the summary is PERFECT!
I like Pal Sinn. He portrayed his role very well.
I though Timmy was pretty good at trying to cover himself up , pal sinn gave the best performance
This review is very accurate. The series sucked so bad but tvb praised it so much. They are blind. And some idiots actually said that linda was accurate in portraying a mental health patient but sorry, I dont think so. She looked like some weirdo with muscle cramps and spasm all the time
You are generous with the rating. 1 star is probably still generous
Second season was boring. i watched 1st 2 eps and stop and watch the last eps for nancy. Nancy did a great job!
I love the case where a bunch of SDU guys were outsmarted and got beaten up by girls who were deaf, blind, mute, or can’t walk. So much for best of the best.
The scenes between Oscar Leung and Christine Kuo were nauseatingly cringe-worthy. When they called each other be-be, ugh!
Watched this, I skipped episode 3 and 6 though lol. Joe’s character helping with investigations lol…
the review is spot on. tvb made a mistake in choosing linda to replace jessica. the whole sequel is a joke
LINDA FAILED! TERRIBLE ACTING!!!,
Agree that Linda was a misfit, but at least she tried something different. Even my 7yo daughter asked me why she kept bulging her eyes.
Him and Mandy were quite good as a couple though.
This review is excellent. It absolutely covered all the faults with this series (there is nothing positive to be covered anyway). There had been TVB productions that were mediocre but none so bad as this one because both male and female leads were a total failure. Joe Ma acted as if it doesn’t matter if he was in the sequel or not. And Linda Chung? I have not seen someone playing a role so badly as her. It was so bad that it became laughable and people were actually watching the series just to see how much bigger her eyes could bulged or how much squarer can she tighten her jaws. If there was a worst female lead award, she would have won hands down!
i stopped at episode 2 and i normally glue to the TV for show of such genre
This series seems to focus more on Him & ooscar. Joe’s character as a backdrop for both rising siu sangs. Joe acted as he doesn’t care what, how, where is happening. Seems like he is just doing a favor for tvb just to complete this sequel. So much laid back, easy going, no more stern serious leader as compare to part1. Such a disappointing pairing btwn him & Linda. No chemistry at all. Wooden romance
agree that Joe didn’t seem into it at all. his character confused me. he seemed different from the character in first series.
I think 3rd series should be called tiger men” cubs sound so baby.
Linda that bad?
Linda was not that bad. Majority of the people in this website already hates Linda for years. The comments every year is the same no matter what Linda does. Yes she did terrible at the screaming, crazy, psychotic parts but besides that she’s acceptable.
“Yes she did terrible at the screaming, crazy, psychotic parts”
That was like 90% of her parts, so yes she did bad. There are a lot of Linda haters, but the negative comments for this year are truly warranted. In ATIBIS, she seemed like she wasn’t trying at all and in TC2, she seemed like she was trying too hard. I don’t know what’s up with Linda lately, she wasn’t the best actress before, but she wasn’t nearly as bad either.
No it was not 90% of her parts. Again people in here just likes to exagerrate. It’s only about 20% of her parts. Anyways, sometimes people just have a few bad years due to many reasons. She’s just human. Even my favorite sport teams don’t perform well all the time every year. I get frustrated but don’t mean I will stop supporting my favorite team because of a few bad games. Linda for me is not a bad actress.
I’m not here to change your views on her. This is just how I feel. U guys can continue to hate her acting. i will just continue to support her even when she’s at her lowest point. She will bounce back up.
The second series was a major dissapointment,it could seriously not have gone worse, your review was spot on, not to mention mandy wongs character has changed completely, she used to talk faster,and she definitely was not a pushover like in this one. The tiger cubs was also lacking chemistry
Tiger cubs 2 is a BIG disaster. Tvb should have kept quiet instead of praising it. The guest stars of the episodes act even better than the sickening Oscar’s winking, the bb talk between him and Christine. Pal sinn was convincing as a police undercover.
Please, no more sequels.
“It was a nightmare seeing those bulging eyes and clenched jaw. Her acting was as fake as the scars on her body”
yesss cant agree more, really torture to see her…. nothing from this sequel that deserve a like …. dissapointed
thank you for putting this up and so heartening to read the comments agreeing wholeheartedly with your spot-on review as well.
i was a HUGE fan of Tiger Cubs and looked fwd to TC2 with great anticipation and expectation. I could only sit through the 1st 2 episodes, waiting for it to change tack. I saw a couple more episodes spottily (here & there) through its run and just could not sit to watch it through.
And it’s not even the poor acting.
i wholly agree its because of this – “The cases themselves had potential, but the ideas were poorly executed. The criminals could do whatever they wanted against the ineffective SDU team. But the SDU would always manage to take them out in the end with ridiculously convenient ways.”
Such a waste this was. Poor acting aside, the plot and character development were all far below par set by the original.
I also missed poor ol’ Vincent Wong! haha but ok, that’s not being objective nor realistic. i mean he DID die, in a way, thankful TVB didn’t dredge up a twin brother or some doppelganger (who wld conveniently be on opposite side of the law) for this. heh
Linda was like in some high school play. Nancy’s role was disappointingly bland. I was looking forward to seeing her character but it wasn’t well written. This is just a poorly written series, unrealistic and even cartoonish, especially the handicapped heroes plot. Jade was my favorite guest though – thought she had more chemistry with Joe than Linda.
I loved ep 2. I thought it was the best one out of the whole series in terms of pace, acting. Pal Sinn did a great job! Ep 1 was OK. Ep 7 was also good.
But every other episode was loaded with unnecessary scenes of immature men, boring love triangles, bad chemistry and bad acting.
I don’t think TC2 was the worst series but it was sure disappointing after many many months of waiting.
there is a different plot in every episode…it’s really too short to develop characters…but Linda’s character dragged on and on from beginning to end like a mad dog with looks ready to kill anyone in her way.
Linda has pulled the rating down in Tiger Cub2, she better just focus on one thing, she film movie, series,music & etc…”Jack of all trades, Master of none”.
Linda pulled the rating down? The ratings were low on episodes that don’t even have Linda in it that much. Don’t just put the blame on her when the drama and other casts were boring and script is poorly written. Linda’s story starts around episode 7-10 and ratings went up.
Tiger Cub2 rating.
1 01 2014年10月19日 25點 27點
2 02 2014年10月26日 22點 24點
3 03 2014年11月2日 22點 23點
4 04 2014年11月9日 21點 23點
5 05 2014年11月16日 20點 21點
6 06 2014年11月23日 19點 21點
7 07 2014年12月7日 21點 22點
8 08 2014年12月14日 20點
9 09 2014年12月21日 19點
10 10 2015年1月4日 22點 24點
really crappy series with childish ideas.
Best actress of the series is Nancy Wu and best actor goes to Pal Sinn. Linda can only play needy characters. The only thing going for Joe Ma was having chemistry with Jessica Hsuan but TVB even took that away.
yes…totally agree with you. Nancy Wu and Pal Sinn are best guest stars.
linda can only act those damsel in distress characters…waiting for superman to save her.
What a terrible sequel, probably the worst I’ve ever seen. Linda’s acting was over exaggerated, christine kuo was just painful to watch due to extremely poor acting, oscar over did the blinking, and it was just comical how the team keeps referring each other as brothers for life but would get into disagreement/scuffle in the blink of an eye and suddenly back to being brothers for life again.