Bi-Polar Cinema: New Police Story

I love Jackie Chan for all the right reasons: I love kung-fu and comedy. The man is, at times, a human crash-test dummy. He has allegedly broken every bone in his body at one time. Why? He does it all for us- the movie audience. Every once in a while, Jackie feels like doing something different. While I applaud that sometimes (considering the man has about 100 Wu Xia films set in feudal China), the results are mixed. For example, this movie...

New Police Story

There is a bit of confusion as to what number this film is in the series. You have Police Story 1 and 2- good so far. Then you have Supercop, which is sometimes called Police Story 3: Supercop. Then we have the sequel (or sidequel): Supercop 2. While Chan does have a cameo in the movie (a really forced one at that), the real star is Michelle Yeoh, his co-star in the original film. So is this new movie Police Story 3, 4 or 5? Now you see why they just said 'Screw it! We'll call it 'New Police Story' instead."

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The film quickly begins with hostage negotiation. Chan and his crack crew show up to save the day. Unfortunately, the guy also has a grenade, making the situation all the more difficult. Through a bit of teamwork, the group manages to take out the man with no loss of life and dump the bomb into the sewers, giving us our first taste of CG explosions to come. Unfortunately, a new group of young criminals are there and take out a whole bunch of regular policemen. Time to get the good cops in.

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To be fair, the movie actually started in the present day with a drunken, sad Chan. Everything you see here is a flashback. Gee, I wonder if the bust goes well? Our hero makes a public statement of victory before they go to the villain's hide-out. Everything goes really bad when they split up, most of Chan's crew falling victim to death traps that are a mix of Saw and Rube Goldberg devices. This all happens because their radios don't work, apparently meaning that cops can't think on their own at all. Chan is left alive, but fails to save his men. Cue the drinking!

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The film introduces our actual supporting cast, including a young lady cop, Chan's fiancee and a young cop that is his new partner. Oddly, the man dresses like David Tennant (of Dr. Who fame) for no good reason. He tries to pull Chan out of his funk and to catch the bad guys. It takes a while, but he manages to do so. Time for Round Two...and three...and four. These guys don't go down easy.

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In a couple asides, the movie feels the need to give us elaborate back-story on the gang's leader. He is apparently the son of a cop who is not nice. I guess that is enough to make you a cop-killer. Thanks, movie.

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Here is the good news: you get a lot of the old Chan stunts. They are not cut short and never disappoint. One fight takes place in a Leggo Store, which is huge! We also get some good one-on-one fights and some classic Chan comedy. In this department, the movie is great. The drama is just...well, it feels odd here. It is not badly-written, acted or directed at all. It just feels weird in this movie.

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If you can accept that this movie is about 60% drama and 40% Jackie Chan film, you can have a good time. The film is well-written, acted and produced. This feels like a classic Chan film when it tries to stay fun. The drama is a bit ham-handed, but otherwise solid. Everyone has a back-story and it is explained nicely. The whole bit with Chan's new partner is addressed in a pretty subtle way in the end. If you can excuse the 'overly Superman-esque' villains and the occasional plot-hole, it is a good rental.

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We've seen how Jackie can handle a melodrama. How does his oldest son fare? Stay tuned...