Taxi 2

Taxi 2 (French: Taxi Deux) is a 2000 French action comedy film directed by Gérard Krawczyk. It stars Samy Naceri, Frédéric Diefenthal, and Marion Cotillard. This movie is the second part of the Taxi film series, following the first movie, Taxi, which came out in 1998.

The story continues from the first film, bringing more fast-paced action and funny moments. After Taxi 2 was released, the series kept going with Taxi 3 in 2003.

Besides the movie, there was also a video game based on Taxi 2. This game was made by Ubi Soft and came out in the same year as the film.

Plot

A Japanese minister of defence was visiting Paris and Marseille to discuss an important agreement between Japan and France. During his visit to Marseille, he was kidnapped by a group connected to the Japanese yakuza.

Emilien, a police officer, was determined to rescue the minister and his girlfriend, detective Petra, who had also been kidnapped. Once again, Daniel, a fast taxi driver known for his speed, was called to help save the day. The film also features exciting car scenes with a Peugeot and a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI driven by the yakuza.

Cast

Here are the main actors and characters from the movie Taxi 2:

• Samy Naceri plays Daniel Morales
• Frédéric Diefenthal plays Émilien Coutant-Kerbalec
• Marion Cotillard plays Lilly Bertineau
• Emma Sjöberg plays Petra
• Bernard Farcy plays Commissaire Gérard Gibert
• Jean-Christophe Bouvet plays Général de division Edmond Bertineau
• Frédérique Tirmont plays Mme Bertineau
• Tsuyu Shimizu plays Yuli
• Édouard Montoute plays Alain Trésor
• Ko Suzuki plays Katano
• Yoshi Oida plays Yuki Tsumoto
• Jean-Louis Schlesser plays himself

Production

Production began right after the first movie became very popular. The filmmaker, Luc Besson, wanted a bigger share of the money from the next movie. The leader of the production company agreed, even though he wasn’t happy about it. The director from the first movie was replaced by someone new.

During filming, a sad accident happened. A camera operator was hurt during a dangerous car stunt and passed away later in the hospital. This made everyone feel very serious about safety while they continued making the movie.

Reception

Box office

The movie started showing in Marseille, France on March 25, 2000, and quickly became very popular. When it opened nationwide on March 29, 2000, it broke records for the most people watching it on the first day and during the first week. Many people went to see it, with over 10 million viewers in France alone and millions more around the world. It was also popular on television, with around 10 million people watching it on TF1.

Critical response

A reviewer from the BBC thought the movie was mostly just a repeat of the first one and gave it two stars out of five. However, they said it still had plenty of exciting action scenes.

Sequel

Main article: Taxi 3

Another movie called Taxi 3 came out in 2003 as a follow-up to this film.

Video game

A video game based on the movie was made by Ubi Soft and came out only in France in the year 2000. It was available for the PC, Dreamcast, PlayStation, and Game Boy Color. Different companies helped create the game for each system.