Jackie Chan's Police Story (Special Collector's Edition) Reviews

This classic Jackie Chan picture opens with one of the wildest police action set pieces ever filmed, an extended chase that includes the total destruction of a hillside shanty settlement, as fleeing crooks and pursing cops crash down through it with their vehicles. Overall, however, the picture is an awkward mixture of clashing elements. At first it is a little strange seeing Chan playing it (mostly) straight in a hard-edged police thriller. The fights are all extremely ferocious and real-looking, without the lighthearted slapstick stylization that leavens his best period vehicles, like Project A, Part II . The comedy elements (especially a recurrent cake-in-the-face gag) seem to come out of nowhere; they are no longer integral to the spirit of the movie. But there are wonderful set pieces, stunts, and action scenes, including Jackie struggling to answer a dozen jangling phones at once, when he's left alone at the police station, and the all-out, glass-smashing fervor of a climactic battle royal in a shopping mall. --David Chute