POLICE STORY. (1985) DIRECTED BY JACKIE CHAN. STARRING JACKIE CHAN, BRIGITTE LIN AND MAGGIE CHEUNG. COUNTRY: HONG KONG. LANGUAGE: CANTONESE.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT to release JACKIE CHAN'S POLICE STORY & POLICE STORY 2, two of the finest action films ever made from cinema's reigning martial arts king, for the first time on Blu-Ray in the UK on 20th August 2018, in a Limited Edition (3,000 copies) Hard-Cased Box-set.'
'Women are strange.'
Aw, this is an absolute treat. This is Jackie Chan at his finest and most legendary, this is. I don't normally care much for action films myself- the word 'action' itself puts me to sleep- but when it's good slick martial arts mixed with genuinely funny comedy, then I'll sit up and pay attention. POLICE STORY is vintage Chan and a cracking good watch to boot.
Chan plays a cop called Ka-Kui, a good young cop who's quickly coming to the attention of his superiors for his, well, good cop-ping, lol. The start of the film sees Ka-Kui and a load of other cops raiding a shanty-town for a drugs kingpin and his minions. They catch the druglord and his underlings but the village on the side of a hill is completely totalled.
Tough luck to all the peasants living there, huh? You can apply to the local police department for compensation but, um, it'll take months, if not years, to go through so to be honest, well, of course, it's up to the individual but all I'm saying is, well, I wouldn't bother. Ahem. Clears throat self-consciously and leaves...
While the case against the druglord is going through the courts, Ka-Kui is given the job of protecting a female hostile witness called Selina Fong, formerly secretary to the druglord. She's feisty and doesn't see why she needs protecting from her former employer. Well, she's being a bit naive there, if you ask me.
She obviously doesn't realise that, if she's been privy to information that might incriminate the crime boss, she immediately becomes very, very dispensable. Surplus to requirements. Liable to snuff it at any moment, in other words, and that's where Ka-Kui comes into the picture.
As The Bodyguard, lol, but absolutely no-one will sing in this film, I promise you. Unless it's the crimelord's underlings 'singing like a canary,' Mob slang for snitching your big fat ass off to the cops. Right about before you sleep with the fishes while wearing a made-to-measure concrete overcoat, lovingly constructed for you by the Mafia of whatever country you're in.
Ka-Kui's annoyed about the assignment at first as he and Selina Fong have already clashed swords on the day of the big crime boss take-down. Which is to say, she spat in his face and he lamped her one in the kisser by way of a thankee kindly, ma'am, and may I please have another? Bodes well for their future relationship as protector and protectee, doesn't it?
Remember this exchange between Homer Simpson from THE SIMPSONS and his teacher at the Bodyguard Academy? Homer's training to be Mayor Quimby's bodyguard but ends up 'bodyguarding' Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker from STAR WARS) as well:
Teacher, in strong Texas accent: 'When you're a bodyguard, your loyalty is to your protectee, not to your family, not to your country and not to Moo-hamed.'
Homer, looking worried: 'Not even during Ramadan?'
Teacher: 'Shut your sass-hole, boy!'
Minding Selina Fong (the new Driving Miss Daisy, perhaps?) is a nuisance for Ka-Kui but at least there's never a dull moment. After her apartment proves 'unsafe' for her to stay at after an 'attack' by an unknown 'assailsant,' Ka-Kui brings the frightened woman back to his own flat for safe-keeping.
Other mishaps include the hapless Ka-Kui playing to an entire court-full of people what he thinks is a tape of evidence he's collected from Selina Fong, but which the listeners take to be a badly-made sex-tape of Ka-Kui trying ineptly to have jiggy-jiggy with the undoubtedly fit Ms. Fong.
Till the end of time, Ka-Kui can claim she sat on a cactus and that that's why she shrieked in distaste but the mirth-convulsed court will always only believe the evidence of its own ears. Even the judge himself is wetting himself laughing. Poor Ka-Kui. Nothing ever goes right for him, lol.
My own favourite funny bit in POLICE STORY, Jackie Chan's personal favourite of all his own action films, is when Ka-Kui steps in a giant pat of cow-shite and then 'unintentionally' breaks into a flawless moonwalk trying to rid his trainers of the foul-smelling excrement.
Like me, Riverdancing like crazy while trying to shake my Grandmother's vicious terrier off my foot whenever I went to visit her when I was a nipper. He used to go for me like I was keeping cats under my jumper or something. Little bastard was called Tiny as well. I never could understand why he was called by such a cutesy name, unless it was out of some kind of irony.
I also love when Ka-Kui's trying to field several telephone calls at once down at the cop-shop and ends up getting in a hopeless muddle of crossed lines. I wonder if the cow that was raped ever plucked up the courage to leave his (or her) domestic abuser. Sounded like a very sad story, did that.
The magnificent and extremely dangerous set-pieces culminate in the trashing of a shopping mall that will leave you breathless. They even show one particularly good bit- Jackie Chan descending a rope of exploding electrical lights- from three different angles just to get the most out of it. These are some of the most spectacular action scenes you'll ever see.
I wonder if they had to get 'em all right first time, these stunts, because if they didn't, would they have had to re-build all the glass cases and everything else that got smashed in the process of each stunt? I think Jackie Chan did all his own stunts here which, if it's true, it's breath-taking, much like the stunts. No wonder he's known as one of the finest action movie heroes of all time.
There's not a whole lot of specific martial arts in the film, ie., shots of Jackie Chan kicking a guy repeatedly in the face, so fast that it looks like it's been speeded-up by the film-makers, while a load of his enemies dance around them both, politely waiting their turn to fight Mr. Chan because everyone knows that in martial arts you can feasibly only deal with one enemy at a time.
No, it's mostly shooting here and 'Pew pew! Pew pew!' and car chases and people crashing through doors and windows and things, but it's all still done with love and style and panache, not to mention Jackie Chan's trademark self-deprecatory humour. He's got a terrifically mobile, expressive face that lends itself perfectly to this kind of slapstick, knockabout humour.
Don't get me wrong, like, he's handsome too. I wouldn't kick him out of bed for boiling the kettle, peeling the foil lid off of the noodles carton, pouring in the boiled water, mixing it with the contents and then allowing it to stand for a few minutes before consuming. For eating noodles, I mean. I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating noodles. Lol. My bad.
'EUREKA ENTERTAINMENT to release JACKIE CHAN'S POLICE STORY & POLICE STORY 2, two of the finest action films ever made from cinema's reigning martial arts king, for the first time on Blu-Ray in the UK on 20th August 2018, in a Limited Edition (3,000 copies) Hard-Cased Box-set.'
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger, poet and book-and-movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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