Movie Talk - More Jackie Chan Movies

Next up is a return to Jackie Chan, the martial arts actor who by the grace of God is still alive. Seriously, look up some of the stunts that didn’t go well! The guy’s broken almost every bone in his body. I don’t know how he's still here!

Last year, I looked at a few movies from his career. This time, I’m going to do the same, but three of them are a part of a series. First up is the 1973 movie, Police Woman. Then, I got the Police Story movies. These movies were basically done in the same vein as 1985’s The Protector, one of the movies I talked about last year. Chan wasn’t happy with that movie and I can’t blame him because I wasn’t happy with it either. So, he decided to redo the concept with Police Story in 1985. It spawned a few sequels, but I’m only looking at Police Story 2 (1988) and Police Story 3: Supercop (1991/1996). He also directed the first two Police Story movies.

Police Woman

Police Woman, Young Tiger, or Rumble in Hong Kong (lotta names!!!) was released in 1973. While some titles have Chan on the main cover, he’s only a supporting character here. It also stars Charlie Chen and Qiu Yuen (Kung Fu Hustle). In the movie, Chien Chen (Chin) is a taxi driver who has a lady die on him in his cab. This results in a gang (led by Chan’s character) harassing him over a purse the lady had. Chien doesn’t know anything about the purse, but the gang continues to harass him. Luckily, he does get some help from his taxi friends. He also gets major help in the form of the lady’s sister, Ho Wai-Man (Yuen). In the end, those two team up to take down the gang in the end.

While this movie has a pretty low score on IMDb, I thought it was an alright movie. There’s not much good to say about it. The box covers make it look like Jackie Chan’s a main star here, but all he is just a gang leader with one of the ugliest moles I’ve ever seen! The dubbing is actually pretty bad here. The sound quality in general is bad since the sound effects didn’t even line up. The movie is also not that interesting. It’s a crime drama and a bland one at that. I kind of also wished the “Police Woman” actually got to do something other than help “Random McRandomDude” out.

It's like someone got a permanent black marker and put that on his face!

While I didn’t like it all that much, there were some okay things. You got some fine fight scenes here. I actually remember seeing one of these fight scenes on some old video years ago. Chan doesn’t do anything too wild here, but he does some okay stunts in. Chin and Yuen also had some nice fight scenes. The movie even had some okay humor, so I can’t completely call it a dud. Overall, it’s not that good, but it isn’t horrible either. Just know that you won’t be getting peak Jackie Chan and you should be fine.

Police Story

Now, I get to the good stuff.  The Police Story movies (most of them anyway) follow the adventures of Detective Chan Ka-Kui (Chan) or “Kevin” in some versions. The dubs I saw for the first and second movie called him “Jackie Chan,” so that was weird. In the first movie, Chan is a part of a sting operation with the Hong Kong Police Force.  A big battle happens between the cops and criminals, and the crime boss, Chu Tao, is caught by Chan. In order to get Chu Tao on his charges, Chan is assigned to look over Tao’s secretary, Selina Fong. Unfortunately, this leads to some shenanigans and Selina disappears. Chan tries to search for her, but Tao tries to frame Chan for the death of a fellow police officer. With the cops now on his back, Chan must try to find Selina and stop Tao for good.

Crazy stunt. You should see how this turned out for him.

I remember that I was going to talk about this one last year, but I opted out for something else. I don’t remember why because this was a pretty good movie. The story is pretty good for the most part. Its tone varies from lighthearted to grim. Chu Tao and his gang aren’t exactly fun guys, ya know?  The movie really throws it into gear when Chan is framed for killing a friend. The ending is also pretty nuts with Chan pretty much having enough of everyone’s crap.

The humor is pretty good at times. I think my favorite would have to be the moment where Chan and his friend try to scare Selina into going into witness protection. The action was top-notch. Chan pulled out all the stops out for this one. The beginning and ending action scenes were pretty awesome. The mall action scene is still one of his best. The movie also had a slamming theme song.

 There isn’t a lot I don’t like about the film. The dubbing for the copy I got was pretty bad. It sounded like they only had five folk dubbing everyone. The stuff involving Chan’s girlfriend was okay. She was funny at times, but her dubbed voice was pretty annoying. Also, there were some supposedly humorous bits that didn’t hit for me. Also, while I liked Chan’s character, he was a bit of a dope. Overall, this was a good start to this movie series.

Police Story 2

Police Story 2 was released in 1988 and takes place after the events of the first movie. Because of his actions in the last movie, Detective Chan is demoted to a traffic cop. Unfortunately, Chu is released from prison and his men cause trouble for Chan. This gets him into more trouble, so Chan decides to quit the force and take a vacation with his girlfriend, May. Unfortunately, his vacation must wait when a mall gets blown up. Since his leaders know Chan can help, they get him to come back to the force. Unfortunately, this puts a wedge between him and May. Things get worse when the terrorists start to target Chan and the force personally.

This was another knockout for Jackie Chan. The story was fine for the most part. While there are lighthearted moments, things have been ramped up to 11 here with the new villains we have. They blowin’ everyone up, yo! We also get the return of Chu Tao and his annoying lawyer and that has some laughs. We even get into Chan’s and May’s relationship a little bit here.  I also liked the team Chan gets put with for the bomb investigation. That interrogation scene with the ladies was pretty funny.

The action scenes are top notch as usual. While Chan’s not pulling off the really big stuff this time, the action is still pretty exciting. My favorite action scene was the fight between Chan and Tao’s thugs. As for the negatives, the movie does have some pacing issues here and there. Also, while I did like seeing Chan’s girlfriend a little more here, she doesn’t add much to the movie. Also, the dubbing once again not that good for this copy. Why didn’t Jackie Chan go back and dub these movies? They definitely needed it. Other than those things and some small nitpicks, this was a good entry in the series.

Police Story 3: Supercop/Supercop

Finally, there’s Police Story 3 or Supercop which is the name I know it as. It was released in 1991 and then re-released in 1996 under Dimension Films.. The movie also stars martial arts actress, Michelle Yeoh, in a major role. In the movie, Detective Chan Ka-kui is put under assignment for China’s Interpol force. He has to go undercover in order to capture a drug lord named Chaibat. Inspector Jessica Yang (Yeoh) informs him of what he’s doing and where he’s going. Chan ends up befriending Chaibat’s friend, Grateful Panther, in order to get into the group. Yang also gets in the under the guise of being Chan’s sister. They do their best to stop Chaibat who’s making some major plays in China and Malaysia.

I know I’m a broken record in saying this, but this was good. Even though it’s not perfect, I think it could be the best of the three. While the story we get is more simplified, it’s pretty good. Chan’s in good form here and I liked seeing his banter with Yeoh. Which reminds me, I need to see more of Michelle Yeoh! The humor was pretty good it was kind of better here than in the other two movies. It might have helped with the dub I watched.

The action was top notch as usual. The fight scenes were amazing and the final action scene with the helicopter was nuts. The action scene in the jungle was also pretty intense and good. As for the dislikes, I don’t have many again. There were some humorous moment that didn’t hit. The small plot involving May (she shows up for a little here) wasn’t that great. It also felt like the story was missing a little something. I later found out that 10 minutes was cut from the 1996 version, so that may be why I felt that way. Even though it has small issues, this was a good treat.

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Well, I’m gonna end it here with Chan for now. I know I’ll probably do some more Jackie Chan movies next year or maybe even something later this year. It’s good to see that he’s still in the business of making movies. Maybe I’ll look at some more modern ones next time. For now, I’m outta here. I think it’s time to move to someone else. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.