Polis Evo 2


Polis Evo 2 is a 2018 Malaysian police action film directed by Joel Soh and Andre Chiew, starring Zizan Razak and Shaheizy Sam reprise their respective roles, with Indonesian actress Raline Shah joined them as the main cast. It revolves Malaysian and Indonesian police to crippled a group of terrorists attacking a hostile village and detaining residents as the hostages. The film was released on 22 November 2018 and is a sequel to the 2015 film of the same title. In December 2018, Polis Evo 2 was listed by the local Malaysian newspaper Harian Metro as among the top 10 local films in Malaysian history. A third sequel of the film is currently in development, with Syafiq Yusof took the role as the director.

Plot

In Bongsun, Pahang, a shootout occurs between the Malaysian police and terrorist members of al-Minas. The shooting ends with the leader of al-Minas being heavily injured and captured, while his brother Saif Hasyam, escapes and vowing revenge.
Months later, Inspector Sani and Khai are involved in an joint operation with Indonesia police to bust a drug deal, led by a drug dealer, Riky. In the chaos they stumbled upon an undercover Indonesia police, Rian. Unknown of her identity, the officers engaged her, but she managed to flee the scene. She handles intel to her boss, but then realised her boss was Riky's mole, who warned Riky about the police raid which allowed him to escape just in time. He tries to kill her, but Rian manages to shoot him.
At the crime scene, Sani and Khai received a tip that the al-Minas faction is having a trade at Pulau Cherong with Riky. They head to the island with two more officers, Lah and Dan. During the reconnaissance, they stumbled Rian again, whose intention was to find and capture Riky when the deal became botched. The situation goes awry when an army of al-Minas terrorists launched gas in the island, taking every villagers as hostages. Khai is separated while tailing a terrorist, Lah is killed in the shootout, while Sani and Dan are captured.
Khai returns to the scene and find an unconscious Rian, but he gets knocked down by an exploding gas tank. In Kuala Lumpur, police head SAC Dato Azizat Mansor tries to negotiate with Saif, the current leader of al-Minas. Saif demands his brother to be handed back to him within hours. However, he kills two hostages when the police are unable to make his request within the time given. In response, they sent a 10-men UKAP operatives to rescue the hostages.
Khai wakes up, and sets out to call for help with Rian. They powered up a communications tower and warned HQ about the presence of a radar in the island, meaning any movement can be detected within the area. However, the tactical team had already begun the raid, and walked into an ambush leaving six operatives dead. Khai and Rian assisted in neutralising the remaining attackers, and regrouped with the remaining four operatives.
Sani and Dan overpowered their captors and held Saif at gunpoint. However, Saif's men managed to subdued the duo, and executes Dan in retaliation. Meanwhile, Khai decides to proceed in rescuing Sani, despite being told not to do so as they have limited support. Nevertheless, the four UKAP operators volunteered to help, as well as Rian. Khai also sets up a rescue plan: send a fake body planted with explosives to Saif, and rescue the hostages during the handover, which HQ agrees.
They rescued the 200 villagers, along with Sani and takes them shelter. Sani blames himself for Dan's death, which Khai tells him to proceed his duty to protect his country. They also find a dead Riky, where his cellphone reveals Rian's former boss was his mole, and the two officers apologize to Rian for not trusting her.
As soon as the terrorists received the fake body, the bomb exploded, and the seven officers start their attack. The four UKAP operators are killed, while Khai is heavily injured in a fistfight. Sani kills the remaining attackers, but is shot by Saif. As Saif prepares to execute him, Khai arrives just in time to shoot Saif.
The duo officers survived the incident and are recovering from their wounds. The film ends with them enjoying the view by the beach.

Cast

Production

The production for Polis EVO 2 took too long to begin due to difficulties to choose the filming location. The original plan was to begin filming prior to Ramadhan of 2017. Producer Joel Soh took the role as director, replacing Ghaz Abu Bakar who directed the first movie. For the movie, he directed with Andre Chiew. According to Soh: "For us, pre-production is a year-round process, expensive screenplay take a month, everything is carefully designed. We do not just put on a person's costumes without looking in. We see what goes into paramedics, sniper tools and all that."
Zizan Razak and Shaheizy Sam reprised their respective roles, with new actors including Hairul Azreen, Hasnul Rahmat, Shafie Naswip, Riz Amin and Erra Fazira. Singapore actors Fir Rahman and Jeff Catz along with Indonesian actress Raline Shah joined the cast of Polis EVO 2. Zizan was reportedly injured when doing a stunt action during the filming. Filming began on October 2017, mostly in Pahang, particularly the Paku Island.

Release and reception

Polis EVO 2 was released on 22 November 2018 to commercial success. It garnered box-office gross at a total of RM20 million 17 days after its release, surpassing the prequel. The film was released in Indonesia on 18 April 2019 and retitled as Police Evo with its theatrical release poster redesigned with a new, features picture of Raline Shah displayed above, while other cast members displayed below. It became the first Polis EVO movie to be released there.
Writing for Star2, Kenneth Chaw called the film as "a courageous film" and gave 7.5 out of 10 stars. He said: "No one expected this from an action flick but Polis Evo 2 unwittingly addresses the importance of taking care of our emotional health". Aidil Rusli from The Malay Mail praise the film and said, "...a film that knows its formula very well, sticks to it, does all the things that it needs to do successfully, and it's also done with a level of craft that does not insult our eyes, ears and intelligence."

Controversy

On 10 November 2018, prior to the official theatrical release, Polis EVO 2 became a controversial subject when it contains scenes that allegedly insulting Islam thus gave a bad image to Muslims. This led to PAS Committee head Dr Riduan Md Nor calling to all Malaysians to boycott the movie.
The Federal Territories Mufti Zulkifli Mohamad Al-Bakri said, Polis EVO 2 does not contain messages that clearly insulting Islam, on the other hand, is more focused on understanding the deviant fanatics and religious extremists that can threaten the peace of the nation. Even the Ministry of Home Affairs Malaysia had earlier issued a statement to investigate the alleged filing of the movie to give a bad image to Islam.

Awards