We start our look back at the six Police Stories with the one that started it all, Police Story. This was released in 1985 and did very decent business across Asia and Europe. Eventually, it made its way everywhere else including the American market and really started to define Jackie Chan’s career as a world action movie megastar. Today we will take a look back at that movie and examine key scenes. It’s a fantastic movie and one of Jackie’s best (some would argue the cream of the crop), but there is still some criticism to be had. Let’s dive in.
The very first scene in the film sets up our introduction of Operation Boar Hunt which also gets us familiar with all of the key bad guys including the leader, Chu Tao (played by Yuen Chor). It helps us get to the action quickly instead of spending a lot of time developing the characters. Here is the drug gang, here is the police force that is gunning for them and let’s go get them folks.
The next thing we know we have entered a small village where the police force has tracked this gang. Part of those cops is our star, Sergeant Ka Kui (played by Jackie Chan). This leads us to our first action scene where we get plenty of gunfire and climaxes with an incredible driving scene. The village is basically on levels where makeshift buildings are on top of each other. Then we get several cars making their way to the bottom. I don’t mean they get to the bottom by driving down a road, they do it by making a road through the buildings until they make it to the ground. The collisions are epic and set the bar high for future scenes (and heck future Police Story movies).
Jackie Chan’s character now has to catch a ride on a bus using only his wits and an umbrella in a very iconic scene. While we got a taste of gunfire and fun with cars, this is the first scene where we really get to see the lead use his unbelievable kung fu and parkour abilities with a touch of slapstick. This slapstick becomes more important as we transition from the action to the dramatic scenes but it is still present here.
The crime lord, Chu Tao along with his gang are caught and apprehended. The police decide to let one of the members be turned into a witness, Selina Fong (played by Brigette Lin) who is now going to be protected by Ka Kui until a trial date is set. The movie at this point which had been praising Jackie Chan’s character as this amazing cop turns him into this person who constantly trips over himself once he comes into contact with anyone of the female persuasion. If this weren’t bad enough, the situation turns worse when we are introduced to Ka Kui’s girlfriend, May (played by Maggie Cheung). May probably gets the award for being the most patient girlfriend ever. I’ll get back to her a little later.
Eventually, Selina ditches poor Ka Kui and the court case is without their star witness. The actual court case itself was in my opinion the biggest misstep in the entire film. First of all, it takes way too long and drags down the entire movie. Ka Kui could have simply shown up in court without the witness, and then it moves to this “intermission” or whatever which I will get to in a second. Instead, not only do we spend time on him trying to get to court, we also waste time arguably with playing this tape that he recorded. Yes, it’s played up for slapstick but it brings the movie to a grinding halt.
Back to this intermission thing. At the end of the court session, it looks like Chu Tao and his gang get off scott free. However, the next scene labels it as an intermission in order to gather evidence which seems to me like this was a China government thing. If you aren’t familiar with traditional Chinese films, the criminals are never allowed to go free. So in this case, the director (which is Jackie here) usually throw something together to make it seem like the criminals are still under arrest so to speak.
With the court case and this announcing of the intermission, the film is desperate to build up action again at this point. They move to another scene which has Ka Kui alone at a police station trying to answer multiple phones and still enjoy his ramen. In this funny scene, we somehow get a poop joke that turns into a Michael Jackson reference among other things. It helps but everyone in the audience is craving a big action scene to turn this film around.
We finally get that big action sequence. I should mention in hope that it does not go unnoticed at how Jackie does some of these what seem to be low key stunts so casually. A stunt such as a quick corner wall jump over a fence. I feel like everyone is raving about all of the glass shattering or village destroying scenes but there are many instances where he does something so easily that we become blasé about it and willing to forget how difficult that actually is.
In the last crucial scene, we end up at a shopping mall where Ka Kui and Salina are basically playing keep away with a briefcase that contains the crucial information that is needed to put away Chu Tao for a very long time. Lots of kung fu, breaking glass and fun stunts. It’s arguably one of the greatest sequences in a modern martial arts film. However, in the midst of this fantastic scene is one crucial misstep. At one point the briefcase is down on one of the bottom floors and Jackie’s character actually yells at May to go get it. Except May isn’t really close to the briefcase at all, just somewhat closer than Ka Kui is.
This of course leads to a point where May gets pummeled for even thinking about going near that briefcase. Not really smart honestly. They could have structured the scene to where she’s really close to the briefcase but still loses it if that was the direction they wanted to go. Instead it looks silly as she tries to go down multiple sets of stairs only to get beat up. This leads into what many people describe as Jackie Chan’s most dangerous stunt ever in the mall slide.
It has to be watched to be believed but essentially Ka Kui slides down a pole from the very top of the mall to the bottom. This is in order to get to the escaping criminals who had the briefcase at this point. Meanwhile, lights are all around and breaking as Jackie continues to slide. It was dangerous because he had no safety wires, no padding and to top it off he could have gotten electrocuted. As history would have it, there were pressures from the mall to get it wrapped up so they could open the next day. This led to burns on Jackie’s hands and spinal fractures as well. But even after the stunt, Jackie got up to finish the scene. (And he would go on to make many other movies)
At the end, we are introduced to the Jackie Chan staple of showcasing stunts that didn’t quite go as planned. I always loved watching this as opposed to black screen and scrolling names. Fun fact, the first Jackie Chan film to do this was Dragon Lord in 1982. As it turns out Jackie took inspiration for this from Cannonball Run where Jackie had a minor role.
The film despite some small overall issues is a classic action film. But it wasn’t only an action film as there were several dramatic and comical scenes that really gave the film a lot of character. It was certainly well acted overall but the holy crap action scenes help to make it stand apart. A lot of American fans know Jackie from Rumble in the Bronx or the Rush Hour series but this is what started it all. I hope you have enjoyed my take on the first Police Story and continue to read as I get through these films. Take care and enjoy.
