Eun-Kyung Shin is still entertaining as the mal-adjusted Eun Jin, a woman who takes on a whole new persona here. After her requisite ass kicking, she's turned in to a subservient fast food deliverywoman, and Shin is still at her top with a strong performance as this character that possesses various shades and quirks while also serving as a great anti-heroine in the process. It's a shame she wasn't completely used to her fullest extent.

When is someone going to admit that this really isn’t a sequel, but just a film they slapped a title on as a sequel? I mean, there’s not a single element in this film beyond sloppily injected elements from the first that would indicate this is a sequel. This film could very well be its own entry before a new franchise, and that’s no compliment. While most times a sequel feeling individual could work for it, director Heung-sun Jeong and his style is so set apart from the original, paired with the terrible script that it’s pretty much a new movie. I’m all for sequels that extend the story, but when you ignore what made the previous film so good as well as the elements and characters, you’re set up to fell from the beginning. “My Wife… 2” loses all of the quirky humor the original held and really replaces it for an overdose of slapstick humor that’s either cartoonish and or flat at all times.

There are prat falls, ridiculous sight gags, and one-liners that fail to deliver, along with a constantly meandering script that’s just so scattered in its path. At some times it’s an action thriller about a woman attempting to learn her identity, then it becomes a slapstick comedy with endless sub-plots thrown in about a bitchy store owner tormenting Cha Eun-Jin, and a gym owner taking advantage of her, while also slapping on some terribly heavy handed plots about Cha Eun-Jin’s caretaker’s daughter engaging in dangerous activity, and a horrible scene of a bank robber kicking a pregnant woman which is a cheesy device intent on jogging Cha Eun-Jin’s memory.

Best of all, many of the plots are completely tossed out the window for this installment. Cha Eun-Jin’s moral compass i.e. the memory of her sister is featured for two seconds and then completely forgotten, and there’s never any mention of her husband. Seriously, what the hell happened to her husband? There’s no mention made of him, there’s no cameo, thus it feels sloppy. With no mention made of him at all, Cha Eun-Jin no longer a wife, she’s just some mobster who lost her memory, so this film really should be called “My Amnesiac Captive is a Gangster.” This was obviously just a film cashing in on the former with no attempt to use the strengths of the original film. And almost as a way to back pedal her more unlikable traits in the original, Cha Eun-Jin is weakened ad nauseum, while her male caretaker Jae-Cheol is completely unlikable as this sleazy and pathetic man anxiously trying to sleep with her, while failing to care of his petulant daughter.

The moment Cha Eun-Jin finally regains her memory, there’s a clear lacking in understanding the emotional potential here, and this new revelation is completely wasted, as is the cheesy climax where she faces off with a new mob boss. And can we talk about the ridiculous sentimental send off involving “I Will Survive” playing while the newly restored Cha Eun-Jin rides off from her town with a smile on her face? She’s a vicious mobster, and here she is riding with her stylist wearing a sweet smile. It’s just atrocious, and completely out of character from the Cha Eun-Jin we saw in the first film. In fact, everything here is a complete departure from the original’s entertaining premise, and that’s a shame, because there was much more left to be done with this character.

This was sadly an embarrassing sequel that will not inspire me to search for the second sequel and finish out the trilogy. “My Wife 2” is a stale, meandering and scattered little mess with plot holes, unbalanced writing, and a depiction of Cha Eun-Jin that separates her from her former character. It’s a disappointing affair that does no justice to the first film.