BY TODD GARBARINI
I love Asian cinema. During the 1990’s
I discovered a whole other cinematic world in the form of Hong Kong action
films at some great Chinatown movie theaters in lower Manhattan, such as the
long-gone Rosemary Theater on Canal Street which is now a Buddhist Temple. Even
the Film Forum, with its gloriously narrow and Quasimodo posture-inducing seats,
also sported its fair share of Hong Kong festivals with screenings of Siu-Tung
Ching’s beloved A Chinese Ghost Story
trilogy, the Swordsman trilogy, and
the follow-up to Jonnie To’s Heroic Trio
from 1993. Independent video stores situated in Asian and Indian neighborhoods
also offered up these amazing Eastern adventures on VHS and the low picture
quality and poorly displayed white subtitles mattered little to those of us
enthralled by the action onscreen. I was lucky enough to locate a store that
rented imported laserdiscs with letterboxed versions of these amazing films. No
one, however, can have a serious discussion about this genre without including
the inimitable Jackie Chan, a powerhouse of a stuntman who also acts in and
even directs much of his own work.
Jackie Chan is known in the United
States through only a handful of films, the first being Hal Needham’s 1981
comedy The Cannonball Run and its
1984 follow-up Cannonball Run II. He
garnered greater exposure in 1995 with Rumble
in the Bronx and his comedic team-up with Chris Tucker in the three Rush Hour films that he appeared in between
1998 and 2007, and a fourth is now rumored to be in the works. His Hong
Kong-based work, though highly prolific, is much less available here and this
is a great shame as these films are wildly entertaining and even flat out
hilarious, easily lending themselves to repeat viewing. Getting his start in
the Hong Kong film business following the void left by the untimely death of
the late martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Mr. Chan worked his way through many
roles and its his turn as a police inspector in 1985’s Police Story wherein his stunt work really shines.
Mr. Chan portrays an undercover police
officer, Chan Ka-Kui, working for the Royal
Hong Kong Police Force attempting to arrest crime lord Chu Tao (Chor Yuen).
Naturally the deal goes sour and his cover is blown, and this results in some
truly amazing stunts involving cars, a huge shanty town, and a double-decker
bus (we learn later on that these dangerous stunts weren’t stunts at all, but
rather mis-timed mistakes that were left in the film!). Later his bosses,
Superintendent Li (Kwok-Hung Lam) and Inspector Bill Wong (Bill Tung), give him
a tongue-lashing for the destruction caused by the investigation and so he’s
placed on another assignment: to protect Selina Fong (Brigitte Lin), Chu Tao’s
secretary. Her demeanor is blasé at best and after she shrugs off an offer of
police protection, Ka-Kui convinces a subordinate to pretend to be a killer,
sneaking into Selina’s apartment with the attempt “to kill her†in a very
humorous sequence that illuminates Mr. Chan’s comedic talents when he “comes to
the rescueâ€. Selina changes her mind, agreeing to testify against her boss in
open court. Ka-Kui’s girlfriend May (the wonderful Maggie Cheung) comes into
the picture when she surprises Ka-Kui at his apartment for his birthday and
notices Selina who is afraid to remain at her own apartment following the attack.
A series of miscommunications and misadventures ensues to give way to some
truly spectacular set pieces. Selina inevitably discovers that her apartment
“attack†was choreographed and embarrasses Ka-Kui in court the following day in
a very amusing sequence.
Crime lord Chu Tao is released on bail
and threatens to kill Selina, though a double-cross by a dirty Police Inspector
who intends to frame Ka-Kui for murder leads Ka-Kui to take Superintendent Li
hostage, but he is eventually freed. In one of the cinema’s first instances of
blackmail via computer files that I can recall, Selina decides to breach her
former boss’s computer system by downloading incriminating files. As a front,
his office is in a shopping mall, and one of the craziest sequences of shopping
mall carnage following John Landis’s The
Blues Brothers (1980) ensues involving some top-notch stunt work. The
film’s ending is abrupt and gives way to the sequel, Police Story 2 (1988).