So far In our countdown
of 10 Days Of Mayhem, i've looked at westerns and homages such as
Assault On Precint 13, The Quick and The Dead and Desperado, so
today, seeing as The Raid is coming from the far East I thought i'd
take a look at a Hong Kong action film. So ladies and gentleman place
your hands together for Jackie Chan's Police Story.....
It wasn't until I saw
Battle Royale for the first time did I discover the awesomeness off
Asian cinema, since that time I've racked up a pretty awesome Asian
cinema collection and every now and then I like to pull one down and
watch it. As this is an action movie countdown, how could I not
include a Jackie Chan Film?...well I decided on Police Story which
has influenced a lot of Hong Kong and U.S films since it's release
back in '85 due to it's brilliant stunt work, fast paced fights
scenes and some truly inspired laugh out loud comic moments. Chan is
the perfect performer for this style of film, he's charismatic,
clumsy, energetic and a fucking master at his craft, I mean the man
has balls, balls of steel to be able to pull of the amount of stunts
he does in his movies and Police Story is where he showed how far he
could go. The film follows Jackie's character, Ka Kui, a cop who
manages to arrest a corrupt business man and drug dealer, Chu Tao,
only to find him placed in charge of protecting a witness, Chu Tao's
secretary, Selina. After She is kidnapped and Jackie save's her, he
finds he is set up for murdering a fellow police officer and must
race against time to clear his name, find Selina again and keep his
relationship with his girlfriend May on track.
From the opening scene
to the very last scene, Police Story is almost non stop action that
encompasses everything from gun battles, car chases, fights, insane
stunts and slapstick comedy in a way only a Jackie Chan film could
do. The opening scene set in a sort of shanty town on a hill side is
one of the most incredible scenes of destruction I've seen in a movie
as cars travel at high speeds destroying home after home after home
and ending with battered cars at the bottom, but wait there's more,
the bad guys escape and Jackie gives chase, hooking onto the back of
a moving bus with an umbrella. It's incredible and something no
Hollywood studio would ever allow which is why most of best action
films come out of Asia. In fact the opening scene is so influential,
Michael Bay replicated it during the finale of Bad Boys 2. Then you
have fights between Jackie and multiple enemies in which Jackie is
able to use his surroundings to his advantage like a clothes rack, a
motorbike and chair. But the film is most famous for the final stunt
of the film as Jackie slides down a pole from several stories up
popping light bulbs as he goes down. It's insane.
Police Story is a great
film, it's funny, well acted and has some of the best stunts ever
committed to film, if you've not seen it, then you should seriously
consider picking this one up. For action fans it doesn't get better
than this, it's just a shame that Hollywood never let Jackie be
Jackie as he's made some truly terrible films in the U.S. So if
you're thinking of going to see The Raid, why not prepare with some
old school Jackie Chan action....
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