Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold is more kung fu craze than blaxploitation. This time Cleo is a stranger in a strange land who spends the entire movie in Hong Kong. Tamara Dobson stands out in even more exotic outfits like a brown sequin dress. Norman Fell plays her new commanding officer that she has a playful relationship with. Cleo is still very much in charge overseas. The only other returning characters are Matt and Mel Johnson who end up captured by the villain during a drug bust.
Despite calling herself the Dragon Lady, Stella Stevens is another white antagonist with more overt lesbian tendencies. Unlike its predecessor, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold is rated R like all the other blaxploitation flicks. Aside from some increased violence, the language is still PG and Dobson still isn’t naked. All the nudity is from the Dragon Lady and her girls who wash the Johnson brothers.
The cast is mostly Chinese including Ni Tien as badass undercover agent Mi Ling-Fong. I can’t help but wonder if the black officer and martial arts expert inspired the Daughters of the Dragon from Marvel comics. The climax at the titular casino is even bigger with lots of guns and kung fu action. None of it seemed to help the sequel since blaxploitation was slowly losing popularity. Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold is a forgotten follow up that does enough justice to the revolutionary black female spy.
Cleopatra Jones at the casino
Preceded by: Cleopatra Jones
Master Mix Movies 
I only ever saw the Cleopatra Jones sequel once in clips, and it was fairly entertaining from what I recall. The climax is quite cool I will say. TCM aired it a while back and I’m again kicking myself for not DVR’ing it or catching it On Demand. The term Dragon Lady is usually used to describe any woman who is ill-tempered or is thought to have (often wrongly) a rough personality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s pretty spot on.
LikeLike