Police Story (1985)

★★
One of Jackie Chan’s biggest hits, Police Story (1985) is a wildly inventive martial arts movie with lots of action and thrilling chases. Using his signature style of fighting multiple enemies with any prop within reach, Chan is a master choreographer with an endless imagination. Throughout his career, he has staged fights in almost every imaginable scenario, often with a dash of humor throw in to make his movies accessible to all ages. It’s a formula that has served him well for many years and allowed him to gain worldwide recognition. Unfortunately, outside of Chan’s most devoted fanbase, Police Story is not likely to find much approval. The action is all there, and it’s terrific, but the slapstick is bad.

Gangster Chu Tao (Chor Yuen) and his men are hiding in a rickety village on a steep hillside. The Royal Hong Kong Police is on the job, and Inspector Ka Kui (Chan) is on hand to arrest the notorious crime lord. The plan goes awry and soon Ka Kui is chasing Chu Tao straight through the village, plowing through buildings and setting off explosions along the way. This is followed by an amazing double-decker bus chase, with Ka Kui at one point hanging on with an umbrella while his body swings around as the bus makes its turns. It’s spectacular because we know by reputation that Chan is not using a harness, so he’s hanging on with his own strength to keep him from flying away.

Tao is arrested and his secretary Salina (Brigitte Lin) will testify against him. Ka Kui’s job is to protect her until the trial, and it is here that the movie shifts its tone to slapstick comedy, with uneven results. Salina at first resents Ka Kui’s presence, feeling that she’s been drafted to testify against her boss in exchange for having all charges dropped against her. She resists protection, though she reconsiders when Ka Kui and a colleague stage an attempt on her life to convince her to change her mind. She does, but when she realizes she’s been duped, she manufactures a dialogue exchange that she secretly records over her testimony, a recording that will eventually be played at the trial, with embarrassing results.

Tao is released due to lack of evidence, and he orders his men to abduct Salina. With the realization that she’s no longer safe, Salina gathers evidence to incriminate her old boss. This all leads to the showdown at a shopping mall, where the climax involves dozens of civilians and Tao’s men everywhere, with only Ka Kui to take them all down. With many floors, escalators, shops and props at his disposal, Chan stages an elaborate fight sequence that ends with a great stunt—he slides down a pole wrapped with lightbulbs. It’s so neat that we get three different angles just to appreciate the difficulty of the stunt.

The fight scenes are terrific and worthy of praise, but Chan’s script delves too frequently into comedic scenes that are too cartoonish even for a bad sitcom. The clumsy dialogue deflates a movie pumped full of action, resulting in an erratic finished product. There’s a scene in the police station in which Ka Kui answers several phones at once and juggles four handsets while pushing himself from one desk to another on an office chair. This might work in a movie that was farcical in nature, but here it’s out of place. On its own terms, it’s amusing, but it disrupts the flow of the story.

Jackie Chan made this movie in response to The Protector, his first attempt to star in an American production. It was a negative experience for him, so Police Story may have been a sort of catharsis, hence the goofy comedic elements. It was not until 1998 that he finally starred in an American production (Rush Hour), after releasing a string of successful foreign films in the U.S. (Rumble in the Bronx, Mr. Nice Guy) to test the waters for a potential return. Is Police Story worth a look. Yes, but repeat viewings will depend entirely on how receptive you are to the comedy.

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