The blu-ray for Police Story: Lockdown was released in August of 2015. At that time in my life, I was only 3 months removed from having my first (and only) kid. I took a break from reviewing movies so I could help my wife as much as I could (and still go to work). That break from reviewing would last close to three years and in that time if I watched a movie, I mostly zoned out and couldn’t tell you much about it regardless of whether it was good or not. What makes this interesting is prior to watching Lockdown again, I could have sworn that I wrote a review mostly because I remember acquiring the blu-ray at release and actually liking it quite a bit. No matter how hard I searched on this site or Upcomingdiscs, I never found any evidence that I completed a review. Then the timeframe made sense, and even though Police Story: Lockdown made quite the impression on me, I never put words to a review. Let’s take another look.
A police siren sounds. We get some gentle music playing in the background as we witness the horror of Detective Zhong Wen (played by Jackie Chan) putting a gun to his head and squeezing the trigger before fading to black. Music continues to play and we get some credits as we open this fine film.
Flashback to earlier that evening. Zhong Wen is in a taxicab, he’s been drinking a bit and is quite tired. Soon he is dropped off by the driver and the detective needs to find Wu Bar, a popular hangout for the hip and trendy of mainland China. He receives a phone call from his daughter, Miao Miao (played by Jing Tian) who he is supposed to meet at the Wu Bar. The phone call doesn’t go as well as planned and he is promptly hanged up on after a few minutes. Eventually he finds his way to the location and is told by the bodyguards that Room 7 has been booked for his meeting with his daughter.
The Wu Bar is having it’s third anniversary party. The Detective happens to be something of a minor celebrity and the press who happens to be there for the celebration tries to interview Zhong Wen with little success. Zhong Wen is also introduced to the bar owner, Wu Jiang (played by Liu Ye) who then takes the detective around the bar showing him the various odds and ends. This includes a quite interesting piranha tank (which is apparently illegal in China).
Soon, we get to Room 7 where Zhong Wen and his daughter, Miao Miao meet. The daughter proceeds to drop the bombshell that herself and Wu Jiang have entered into a relationship. The detective understandably objects and he is not happy. Well, Miao Miao is not happy either. She goes on about that this is the anniversary of Mom’s death and how she feels like an orphan because Zhong Wen is absorbed in his work so much.
Meanwhile, a vagrant is making a mess downstairs on the main floor of the bar. We suddenly realize that he has dynamite on his person and he wants to be payed what he’s owed. The detective moves quickly to defuse the situation and the dynamite before it explodes. He is able to do so much to the dismay of his daughter (she is not willing to admit that he is a cop). However, the night has just begun for Zhong Wen as someone hits him over the head, rendering him unconscious.
What we soon find out is that Wu Jiang is no ordinary bar owner and that he has a link to the Detective’s past. Through this scheme, he will exact his revenge. I will say that once everything is revealed and out on the table, it’s pretty eye-opening and will shock almost everyone watching as the story unfolds. Jackie does a fantastic job here and much like New Police Story, any attempt to find slapstick or goofiness is going to prove to be futile. He is more serious and while there are a few martial arts scenes, the action (perhaps a little surprisingly) is much more muted and important to the plot than just done for thrills.
Also similar to New Police Story, this movie hinges on the performances of people more than Jackie himself. Liu Ye and Jing Tian both do a fantastic job but so do so many other actors and actresses with parts both small and large. It’s what makes the movie so watchable and absorbing. I hadn’t watched it since 2015, and it felt like a new movie at times because I was re-discovering plot points again and adding a few new wrinkles as well. Yes, the movie is somewhat outlandish at times, but it’s a lot of good fun too.
The plot feels a like a Die Hard movie. Meaning, give the action star an indoor locale to work in (the Bar) and have to maneuver around without being detected while uncovering the layers of the story. In that respect, the movie certainly becomes almost Western in its appeal as once you take the mainland Chinese police out of it, it doesn’t feel like you are watching a Chinese movie at all. It’s a real shame that it didn’t have a short United States run in the box office as I think it could have made some money.
Moving on to the blu-ray itself, the video and audio here are spectacular. With the volume turned up, it will give your speakers and display a workout. The production value with its 35 million dollar budget (which would work out to about 50 million today) is high here and was certainly comparable to other 2013 action movies like Escape Plan, Last Stand and Dead Man Down. On the extras side, the disc is a little weak as there are tiny interviews with the director, Ding Sheng before getting separate interviews with Jackie, Liu and Jing. This is followed by another short Behind the Scenes feature (honestly the usual Jackie Chan style credits were way more entertaining) and of course, the Theatrical Trailer.
This film thanks to Jackie Chan’s popularity did very well in Asian markets. So much so, it gained a box office of almost $100 million which is very good. It was mauled by critics unfortunately and certainly never found a large audience over here but story-wise, I think it’s in the top 3 of the Police Story franchise. Jackie doesn’t have to do slapstick or even high martial arts to get people to watch him. He has a wonderful charisma when on-screen and has a natural flow to playing cop characters. I am very eager to see New Police Story 2 whenever it does drop next year and I really hope that it comes up to the same quality of these last two pictures. Furthermore, I’ll say it again, if Jackie ever wants to play a true villain character in a movie, I think plenty of people will be quite surprised by his performance. I doubt it will ever happen, but I think it’s honestly time in his illustrious career for that to occur.
With that said, this film is severely underrated in my opinion. It boasts solid storytelling, a nice selection of twists and turns and action that makes sense (well most of the time). As with all of the films in this series, I give this one another recommendation and it’s a worthy part of the franchise. Good stories are often hard to come by in action movies, and this one does not disappoint. Enjoy.
Note: If you have read this far, this isn’t quite the end of our review journey when it comes to the Police Story line of movies. I won’t spoil it, but I might have one more bullet in the chamber that’s coming to me shortly (I had to get a couple of items from the UK and France on this one). If I had to put a time table on it, we’ll say early to mid-August. In the meantime, I will take on a couple of other more traditional disc type reviews. Hope you have enjoyed these, I sure have in writing them. Take care.
