Police Story series

(Second Viewing, On Cable TV, June 2022) Jackie Chan goes from Hong Kong cop to international secret agent in Police Story 4: First Strike – such a change of pace that the film was marketed in North America as its own standalone film. I actually saw it in theatres back then, a month or two before I started reviewing every film I saw on this web site, but I still had to watch a few minutes of First Strike before confirming that, yes, I had already seen it. (Chan’s koala briefs was the thing that made me go from “this is familiar” to “yup, seen it.”)  This lack of certitude about whether this was a first or second viewing is not a reflection on the quality of the film – almost any Jackie Chan film from his golden period (roughly 1978–1998) is guaranteed to be comic Kung fu entertainment worth seeing on its own, but there are so many of them that anyone may be unsure which one it is. First Strike is “the stepladder one” – because, after some lengthy throat-clearing that humorously shows Chan in the middle of a Bond-like international adventure going from Hong Kong to Ukraine to Australia, the film really finds its usual footing in a terrific athletic sequence in which Chan uses a stepladder to defend himself from attackers. It’s a sequence as good as any other Chan showpiece, with an incredible integration of environmental elements to enliven great stunts – an exceptional showcase of Chan’s team approach to blocking a scene from scene elements and riffing ever-crazier action beats from what’s available. The comedy is the usual for Chan – an innocuous blend of an incredible athlete’s self-deprecation and family-friendly action. First Strike amounts to a film that sits solidly in Chan’s middle-tier filmography – not a classic, but a respectable, solid entry that showcases him doing what only he could do.

(On Cable TV, June 2022) Amazingly enough, my Jackie Chan binge-watching mania of the 1990s apparently didn’t include Police Story 2. I probably made the jump straight from the first to the third film, which makes sense – both of them are acknowledged Chan classics, whereas the second instalment is merely… good. This time, mad bombers are going wild in Hong Kong and it’s up to Chan to stop them. Let’s be blunt: there’s little here that competes with the glorious madness of the first film’s shantytown destruction, bus-catching or glass-smashing climax. But it’s impressive in its own lower-key way. Once again, the Chan team of stuntmen goes for broken bones in capturing great sequences and fights on-screen. The pacing of the film is generally slower but more controlled: there’s a better sense here of action progression, with the set-pieces becoming bigger and better until the (at last!) explosive finale. Chan gets to have a few fights taking advantage of his environment, always a trademark, and there’s even a distinctive enemy to fight against. Police Story 2 is a decent follow-up to the first film even if it’s not as impressive – you seldom go wrong with Jackie Chan films of the 1980s, and this one proves it.