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| police story |
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| Written and directed by Jackie Chan. Production Coordinator – Willie Chan. Supervisor – Edward Tan. Starring – Jackie Chan, Chua Yuen, Brigitte Lin Ching-Hsia, Bill Tung, Kenneth Tong and Maggie Cheung. As a Hong Kong film-watcher, I’m sure you have many different tastes, depending largely on your mood. Sometimes, you want to be touched by a moving drama. Sometimes, you want to be caught-up in a tender romance. Sometimes, you want to be left weeping by a poignant tragedy. Sometimes, you want to be left laughing by a comedy. And sometimes – you want to be blown away by some breathtaking, heart-stopping, mind-numbing action. And when that last mood takes you, look no further than Jackie Chan’s Police Story. There are stunts. There are fights. There is comedy. There’s just enough drama to give Kevin Chan (Jackie Chan) depth. A whole lot of glass gets broken. It may sound dull on paper, but onscreen it shines bright, propelled by Chan’s charisma and unmatchable physical talent. The characterisation isn’t bad, but would never stand on its own without the action to support it; Chan plays Kevin Chan, a hard-boiled cop with a heart, but that’s as far is it goes. The plot of the movie is minimal, providing the vehicle to kick the action along, and keep Kevin Chan’s feet on the ground. Basically, Kevin Chan is a detective who us part of a special team created to bust a drugs ring run by Chu Tao. The plan they had rehearsed goes wrong when put into action, and the team members all try and prove it wasn’t their fault. Chan arrests Selina, Chu’s secretary and mistress, and tries to make her turn in evidence against Chu. Chu sends men to kill both Selina and Chan, and Chan ends up framed for a murder he didn’t commit. Chan ends up running from both Chu’s men and the police. But then there is the action. Never in any action movie has there been so much large-scale destruction and mayhem, dished up with such joyful abandon. The opening ten minutes of the movie include cars driving through a shanty-town (and that’s through as in through, smashing the buildings that get in the way), a run down an almost vertical slop, and then the (now very famous) bus stunt: using only an umbrella, Chan hangs off the back of a speeding bus as the driver does everything imaginable to get rid of him. And after scorching and smashing his way through the first action-packed half of the movie, Chan collides gloriously with the finale to end all finales: a huge running brawl in a shopping mall, involving everything from clothing-racks to motorbikes being used as weapons; stuntmen fly everywhere, much broken glass ensues – and Chan slides down a flimsy string of fairy lights to the floor below, smashing through yet more glass as he falls; without a cut, he gets up and walks away, although the impressive outtakes show just how badly hurt he was. He suffered third-degree burns on his hands, and he almost broke his spine. Police Story stands alone as one of the greatest action movies ever made. Forget the drama, forget the comedy, forget the anything else that might get in your way. Just concentrate on the action. |