Jackie Chan in Police Story

Back in 1985, Jackie Chan was a proud Hong Konger, rather than a Mainland suck-up. That year saw the release of his first outing as Chan Ka-kui, a model officer of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. In fact, his boss will make him the poster-cop for the department’s recruitment campaign, but his subsequent witness protection assignment brings no end of trouble in Chan’s Police Story, which opens today in a shiny new 4K restoration at the NuArt in LA.

Viewers should have an idea of what to expect from PS1 from the opening action scene. Basically, an entire hillside squatters’ camp is leveled to the ground when Chan chases the slimy crime boss Chu Tao through it. However, Chan is just getting started (as director, character, and action star).

Chu manages to elude Chan’s grasp, but his new assistant Selina Fong is not so fortunate. She has no intention of testifying against her boss, but when the HK brass announces her cooperation, they basically force her hand. Naturally, they assign Chan the supercop to lead her security detail. Unfortunately, Fong will not believe the truth about Chu until it is almost too late, but she will create tons of problems for Chan during the second act, when his naïve girlfriend May mistakenly assumes something intimate is brewing between the cop and the reluctant witness.

If you enjoy fight scenes than Police Story 1 is truly your catnip. Although the film has plenty of Chan’s signature brand of goofy humor, the melee gets pretty brutal, with combatants landing hard on pelvises and tailbones. Much glass is broken during the course of the film, but it all culminates spectacularly in a barnburner of beatdown in a shopping mall, which is just so eighties.

Throughout Police Story, Chan is determined to please and entertain, regardless of the wear and tear on his body. He definitely takes a beating and keeps on ticking. This is classic Chan and Chor Yuen is a classic movie villain as Chu. Frankly, Maggie Cheung is a bit under-employed as May, but Brigitte Lin vamps it up old school as Fong, the pseudo-femme fatale.

Even Jackie Chan’s biggest fans will admit the narrative is just whatever and some of the gags are shamelessly shticky. However, the big action centerpieces are still impressive. It is also quite a vivid reminder of how analog the world was during the mid-1980s. In the case of Hong Kong, it was also freer back then. Indeed, Police Story helps us remember how great the eighties were, back before Jackie Chan sold his soul to the Mainland regime. Highly recommended for all action fans, Police Story 1 and 2 both open today (3/8) in LA, at the Landmark NuArt.

Goddess: Ashes of Time Redux

Ouyang Feng is an agent for freelance swordsmen looking for some dirty work.  You could call him a cutthroat’s cutthroat.  Likewise, when it comes to love, he is a cynic’s cynic.  If you suppose a woman was the cause of his hardened heart, you would be correct.  It is a logical guess, considering Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux (trailer here) screens this Friday as part of the Asia Society’s film series Goddess: Chinese Women on Screen.

Instead of adapting Louis Cha’s epic novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes, Wong conceived of an original pseudo-prequel that can be fully appreciated without prior familiarity with its inspiration.  Every year, the swashbuckler Huang Yaoshi pays a visit to his friend Ouyang’s desert home.  Both are men with complicated pasts.  For his latest visit, Huang brings a bottle of supposedly enchanted wine that is said to induce forgetfulness.  Huang imbibes.  Ouyang does not.

After Huang disappears, apparently under the effects of the potent drink, Ouyang carries on with business.  However, his next clients are somehow involved with his soul-sick friend.  Clan leader Murong Yang recruits Ouyang to murder Huang in retribution for spurning his sister, Murong Yin.  Soon thereafter, the sister tries to hire Ouyang to murder her compulsively controlling brother.  In a hallucinatory evening (which is par for the course in Ashes), Ouyang realizes Yin and Yang are the same divided person.

The seasons pass, but it is hard judge time in the desert.  Ouyang recruits a wandering swordsman to defend the village from a band of outlaws.  His skills are formidable, but he is rapidly losing his sight.  The man’s one desire is to see his native land once again before going completely blind.  Eventually, Ouyang also yearns for home, where the woman he once loved lives as his brother’s wife.

Redux is the restored and reworked de facto director’s cut of Ashes Wong oversaw when he realized how many dubious copies of the film were in circulation.  Featuring fight choreography by Sammo Hung, it is quite stylistically daring by martial art film standards, bordering on the outright experimental.  There is indeed a fair amount of combat, but the action is rendered impressionistically blurred, almost like a series of freeze frames.

As promised, there are also several divas, including Brigitte Lin in sort of a dual role as the Murongs.  Although she is always recognizable, Lin brings a conviction to both personas that keeps the audience off-balance.  Yet, it is Maggie Cheung who really lowers the diva boom as the woman from Ouyang’s past.  Emotionally devastating but never indulgent or showy, it might represent the best second for second cameo ever.  As a bonus, Charlie Young is a genuinely haunting presence as the peasant girl out to avenge her brother.

While the film’s color palette reportedly varies depending on its various editions, any retrospective of cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s work ought to start or finish with Ashes.  The golds and burnt-umbers of Redux are absolutely striking.  Frankly, Ashes Redux is a daring classic of the genre that might be new to a lot of people who might think they have seen it already (like a wuxia Bladerunner).  Highly recommended, Ashes of Time Redux screens this Friday (12/7) at the Asia Society.

HK at BAM: Dragon Inn

It was a dark time in Chinese history, when blood thirsty eunuchs terrorized the land. No, seriously. Operating from his power base in the so-called East Chamber bureaucracy (responsible for intelligence gathering and warfare development), Tsao Siu-yan usurped the Emperor, in terms of practical power if not in official title. Naturally, this did not sit well with the warrior class. Tsao and his fellow eunuchs attempt to entrap one of their more resourceful military rivals using the children of his mentor as bait in Raymond Lee’s wild wuxia epic Dragon Inn, (produced by Tsui Hark, trailer here), which screens as part of BAM mini-retrospective Hong Kong Favorites, co-presented by Subway Cinema.

In the unforgiving desert, only the remote Dragon Inn offers shelter from the baking heat and flash thunderstorms. Like a Ming Dynasty Mos Eisley, an uneasy truce is enforced in the roadhouse by Jade, its sexpot proprietor, whose meat pies are made with Sweeney Todd’s special recipe. Disguised as a man, the Xena-like Yau Mo-yan rescues the children, taking them to the dodgy inn to await Chow Wai-on, their father’s former lieutenant and her prospective lover. However, when the warrior arrives, he turns the jaded Jade’s head. Entering into the intrigue as a wildcard, she devises ways to keep Chow’s party in her inn and get him into her chambers, all while maintaining her Swedish neutrality.

Boasting an all-star cast, Dragon Inn presents Donnie Yen as you have never seen him before: evil and emasculated. Frankly, it is hard to believe it is him pimped out as Tsao. However, it is a familiar role for Brigitte Lin, kicking male butt in Yau’s male garb. Neither is Maggie Cheung (Olivier Assayas’s ex) unaccustomed to playing the sultry femme fatales, vamping it up something fierce as Jade. Indeed, when Lin and Leung square off, it is definitely worth the price of admission (though more of a suggestive ice-breaker than a bone crusher). However, Tony Leung Ka-fai (not to be confused with Tony Leung Chiu-wai who scorched up the screen with Maggie Cheung in 2046 and In the Mood for Love) is a bit bland as Chow. It is hard to see how he could inspire such romantic rival, beyond his willingness to stand up to the eunuchs.

Known as New Dragon Gate Inn throughout Asia, Lee’s film is considered a liberty-taking reboot of King Hu’s 1966 Dragon Gate Inn. It definitely makes use of the Flying Dagger style technological advances, sailing its combatants through the air, every which way. Yet, it is all rendered in the gritty washed out color spectrum of Sergio Leone westerns. The blood is still deep crimson though. In fact, the final showdown is decidedly gory, in a way that is surprisingly macabre. (It also defies logic, but that is neither here nor there.)

New Dragon Inn is more a film for established fans (capable of rolling with its sub-Shaw Brothers visual quality) than a wuxia introductory calling card for the uninitiated. However, for those who want to watch Lin kill people in the air and Leung steam things up on the ground, it definitely all that. Good clean eunuch killing fun, Dragon Inn screens tomorrow (8/1) at BAM as part of the too-short Hong Kong Favorites series.