No Jugni this time.

Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi (2018) is a very direct sequel to 2016's Happy Bhaag Jayegi, featuring many of the same actors playing the same characters, which is more unusual in Bollywood than you might expect.  Of course, it focuses on Happy and Guddu, the apparent leads of the previous movie, rather than Bilal and Zoya, the actually interesting characters.  Fortunately, the last movie's comic relief is along for the ride as well.

As the movie opens, Happy (Diana Penty) and Guddu (Ali Fazal) are happily married.  Guddu has received an offer to perform in Shanghai (for money, even!) so the young couple hop on a plane, not realizing that the scheduled performance is a trap.  Chinese gangster Chang (Jason Tham) has his men waiting at the airport to snatch the young couple, all part of a complicated and poorly thought out scheme to convince Bilal (The aptly named Sir Not Appearing In This Film) to hand over a contract to them by holding happy as hostage and sending Guddu to Pakistan as an intermediary.  The plane lands, and sure enough, Chang's men abduct Harpreet "Happy" Kaur.

The trouble is, they've grabbed the wrong Happy.  Harpreet "Happy" Kaur (Sonakshi Sinha) is a professor of botany who has arrived in China to take up a teaching job, though she has an ulterior motive which will be important later.  Happy tries to explain that she's never been to Pakistan, doesn't know anyone named Bilal, and they have clearly kidnapped the wrong woman, but Chang can't believe that there could be two Happy Kaurs from Amritsar, so he has his men kidnap more people from the first movie in order to convince her to cooperate.  Bagga (Jimmy Shergill) and Usman (Piyush Mishra) are delivered just in time to discover that Happy has escaped, and so Chang orders his new prisoners to track down his old prisoner, because Chang really isn't very good at crime.

The escaped Happy wanders the streets of Shanghai in search of someone to help her get to the college, and eventually she meets sad sack Sardar and embassy worker Kushwant Singh Gill (Jassi Gill), who finally agrees to help her by taking her to meet influential Pakistani-Chinese businessman Adnan Chow (Denzil Smith.)  (Chow has a dark secret, and you've probably already figured out what it is.)  Chow agrees to help, but urges Happy and Kushwant to lie low for a while, and especially not to go to the police, since his sources tell him that there's a warrant for Happy's arrest for drug smuggling.

Happy and Kushwant dutifully return to his apartment and  lie low, but somehow Chang manages to find them, with Bagga and Usman in tow.  This is clearly not the Happy that they know, so there's some confusion, leading to a brief scuffle, and Happy, Kushwant, Bagga, and Usman all escape together.

That's when Happy reveals her ulterior motive; she was left at the altar by childhood friend and arranged groom Aman (Aparshakti Khurana), and she's come to China to find him and drag him back to Punjab to apologize to her father.  The others agree to help, which means it's time for a road trip.  Kushwant keeps in touch with Chow, who offers helpful advice, while Chang mysteriously keeps finding them.

Meanwhile, after a very confusing day at the university, the other Happy and Guddu meander through Shanghai, enjoying an unscheduled second honeymoon.  Will the two plots intersect?  Eventually!

Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi is probably funnier than the first movie, but it's missing the little arthouse touches that made the first movie interesting, though to be fair most of those arthouse touches come from having Abhay Deol in the cast.  On the other hand, some things don't change. The original Happy and Guddu are still incredibly static characters who don't really change and don't learn anything.  They're also further in the background this time around; I think Bilal has more of an impact on the plot, and he's not even in the movie.

Setting the movie in Shanghai is a bit of a risk, since Bollywood has a long history of offensive portrayals of Chinese people.  (Looking at you, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani!)  Chang is the most prominent Chinese character here, and he's a violent gangster who is bad at his job, while his subordinates are fools, but their foolishness is not a function of being Chinese, and the various supporting characters are portrayed as people.  There are a few jokes based around "They all look the same to me," but the joke seems to be that Bagga and Usman are a bit prejudiced, and that prejudice comes back to bite them.

This is a sequel with surprisingly tight continuity with the first movie, with characters reflecting on previous events rather than merely recycling jokes.  It's still a sequel, though, recycling many of the plot points from the previous outing on a bigger scale, while omitting the actually interesting characters form the first one.  Fortunately, the new Happy and Kushwant are interesting ion their own right, and do experience plenty of character development.  Somebody has to.