Police Story (a brief film review)

For me the appeal of a Jackie Chan movie is not the Kung Fu but the stunts Chan uses to get from point A to point B. In that sense, Police Story has always appealed to me (check out the scene where Chan "navigates" a high gate). This is the umpteenth time I have watched this particular Jackie Chan starrer.



The storyline is one seen in any number of Chan's cop flicks. Its merely a reason to put together various stunts in a somewhat coherent format. The women, as in most early Jackie Chan movies, are underused in Police Story.

Some of the attempts at comedy are laughably bad. But this movie was also made (in 1985) for a primarily Asian audience. So who knows what kind of humor works in that part of the world. This movie would still work if the "comic" scenes were removed.

This was one of very few movies where Chan uses a gun (in most of his movies, the bad guys are the ones who use guns while Chan fights using objects such as a stool or a ladder).

Still, for all its faults (including the campy dubbing in English), this is a movie that can be watched with glee any number of times!