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.
