Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) Hmm. As much as the first Cleopatra Jones is one of my favourite exemplars of blaxploitation, its sequel Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold doesn’t reach anywhere close to the impact of the first film. In the time-honoured tradition of making sequels bigger and foreign, this one sends Cleopatra Jones to Hong Kong, where she has to rescue two kidnapped agents and defeat a drug lord. It’s colourfully photographed on location and benefits from the co-production with the legendary Shaw Brothers, depends on Tamara Dobson’s charisma and flashy outfits… but fails to ignite. The script is dull and by-the-numbers when seen shortly after the over-the-top nature of the first film and its antagonist—Stella Stevens does her best as the villain but doesn’t have enough substance to be effective. There’s definitely some local colour, including a trip in the vicinity of the Walled City, but the character of Cleopatra Jones looks out of place in Hong Kong. Some of the action beats are rather good (thanks to the local filmmaking crew putting together great kung fu sequences) and the film, amazingly enough, easily passes the Bechdel test. But there are annoyances—Dobson has some overdone makeup and never once shows her hair throughout the film—and while these choices don’t make the film unwatchable, they help in making it a lesser experience. That ending sequence, in which they utterly trash an expansive casino set, is one good final set piece, though.