Police Story (film)
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| Police Story | |
|---|---|
 Japanese DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Jackie Chan |
| Produced by | Raymond Chow Leonard Ho |
| Written by | Edward Tang |
| Starring | Jackie Chan Brigitte Lin Maggie Cheung Charlie Cho |
| Music by | J. Peter Robinson |
| Cinematography | Cheung Yiu-Tsou |
| Editing by | Yiu-Tsou |
| Distributed by | Golden Harvest |
| Release date(s) |  December 14, 1985 |
| Running time | 101 min.(Hong Kong) 106 min.(Japan) 99 min.(UK) 90 min.(US) |
| Country | Hong Kong |
| Language | Cantonese |
| Followed by | Police Story 2 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Police Story (警察故事, Ging chaat goo si) (Pinyin: Jǐngchá Gùshì) is a 1985 Hong Kong action-comedy film directed by and starring Jackie Chan. It is the first of a series featuring Jackie Chan as a Hong Kong police detective named "Kevin" Chan Ka Kui.
With an opening sequence that features a car chase through a shanty town, Chan stopping a double-decker bus with his service revolver and a climactic ending fight scene in a shopping mall, Police Story is considered by fans to be one of Chan's best films. It was a massive hit in Asia and also won Best Film at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards.
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[edit] Plot
The Hong Kong Police Force is planning a major undercover sting called "Operation Boar Hunt" to arrest crime lord Chu Tao (Yuen Chor).
Inspector Chan Ka Kui (or Kevin Chan in some versions) is part of the operation, along with undercover officers stationed in a shanty town. However, the criminals spot the police and the ensuing car chase cuts through the hillside shanty town, vehicles destroying the shacks and causing large explosions.
Ka Kui persists in his chase, eventually following on foot as the drug lord attempts to escape in a double-decker bus. Ka Kui catches the bus and initially is able to hang on to it using an umbrella, but is thrown off. He then manages to get in front of the bus and bring it to a halt by threatening to shoot the driver with his service revolver. Ka Kui is reprimanded by Superintendent Li for letting the operation get out of hand, but is subsequently presented to the media as a model police officer.
His next assignment is to monitor Chu Tao's secretary, Selina Fong (Brigitte Lin), so she can testify in court about Chu Tao's illegal activities. Selina is uncooperative at first, but after Ka Kui has a fellow policeman break into her apartment and pose as a knife-wielding murderer, he convinces her that she needs his protection. After Ka Kui and Selina leave her apartment later that evening, they are attacked by some street thugs, whom Ka Kui is able to defeat with his martial arts skills, though the fight leaves Selina's car a wreck.
When Ka Kui arrives at his apartment with Selina, who is only wearing lingerie, he is surprised by his girlfriend, May (Maggie Cheung), and her friends, who are throwing a birthday party for him. May, seeing the scantily-clad Selina, misunderstands and becomes angry with Ka Kui, shoving the birthday cake into his face. Ka Kui is later able to explain to May that Selina is a witness, but only after much bumbling and further misunderstanding.
Meanwhile, Selina has discovered that the attack by the man with knife at her apartment was a sham, and so she decides to not cooperate with Ka Kui. She sneaks away while Ka Kui is sleeping and is not present for the crucial court date the following day.
Though Chu Tao is released on bail, he wants to have revenge against the poster-boy cop, Ka Kui Chan. Using a corrupt policeman, Inspector Man (Kam Hing Ying), Chu Tao is able to trap Ka Kui into a set-up, framing him for the fatal shooting of Inspector Man. Now a fugitive cop killer, Ka Kui must try to catch Chu Tao and clear his name.
The action comes to a head in a shopping mall, where Chu Tao has an office. After surviving a murder attempt by Chu Tao's men to ensure her silence, Selina goes to the office to download incriminating data from Chu Tao's computer system. Chu Tao notices that the data is being dumped and he and his men head to the shopping mall to intervene. Ka Kui, who's watching Chu Tao's activities, follows. In the ensuing fight, Ka Kui defeats all of Chu Tao's henchmen. The briefcase containing the computer data falls to the ground floor of the mall, but Chu Tao retrieves it. Ka Kui, at the top floor, leaps off a ledge and grabs a pole wrapped in lightbulbs. He rapidly slides down the pole, smashing through the bulbs, crashing through a glass ceiling and finally to the floor, where he violently apprehends Chu Tao, as well as the real killer of Inspector Man.
[edit] Cast and roles
- Jackie Chan as "Kevin" Chan Ka Kui
- Brigitte Lin as Selina Fong
- Maggie Cheung as May
- Chor Yuen as Chu Tao
- Charlie Cho as John Ko
- Fung Hark-On as Danny Chu
- Kam Hing Ying as Inspector Man
- Lam Kwok-Hung as Superintendent Raymond Li
- Bill Tung as "Uncle" Bill Wong
- Mars as Kim
- Lau Chi-Wing as Lawyer Cheung
- Tai Po as Lee
- Ken Tong as Tom
- Wan Fat as Jacknife
- Woo Fung as Sha Tau Kok Station Commander
- Money Lo as television interviewer
[edit] Awards and nominations
- 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards
- Won: Best Picture
- Won: Best Action Choreography
- Nominated: Best Director (Jackie Chan)
- Nominated: Best Actor (Jackie Chan)
- Nomianted: Best Actress (Brigitte Lin)
- Nominated: Best Cinematography (Cheung Yin-Tsou)
- Nominated: Best Film Editing (Peter Cheung)
[edit] Box office
The film grossed HK $26,626,760 in Hong Kong.
[edit] Sequels
[edit] Police Story 2
Police Story 2 (警察故事２), made in 1988, featured many of the same actors reprising their roles from the original. The story picks up with Chan demoted traffic cop for causing so much damage in his apprehension of Ku. Ku has been released from prison on the pretense that he is terminally ill, and Ku and his clan continue to harass Chan and his girlfriend May as Chan gets reinstated to the detective unit when criminal bombers begin extorting money from businessmen.
[edit] Police Story 3
Police Story 3 (警察故事３超級警察, or Supercop) was made in 1992. Michelle Yeoh joins the cast, portraying a police officer from mainland China. The story involves Chan and Yeoh's character going undercover to try to break up a drug smuggling ring. The action moves from China to Kuala Lumpur, where Chan's girlfriend May is kidnapped. The film marks the last appearance of Maggie Cheung as May. Michelle Yeoh reprises her role in the spin-off, called Project S. Dimension Films released Police Story 3 to in the US in 1996 under the name of Supercop with some edits to the film, the complete replacement of all music and sound effects, and English dubbing.
[edit] Police Story 4: First Strike
Police Story 4 (簡單任務), made in 1996, is the only film in the Police Story series made in English. The action shifts away from Hong Kong and Asia, with a globe trekking espionage plot, lending the film the air of a James Bond adventure. The New Line Cinema release in the US further removed connections to the previous Police Story films by changing the title to Jackie Chan's First Strike and renaming "Kevin" Chan Ka Kui to simply "Jackie". Filmed on location in Ukraine and Australia, the film also marks the last appearance of Bill Tung, who plays Chan's uncle in the series.
[edit] New Police Story
New Police Story (新警察故事) is a sequel in name only and has no connections to the earlier films in the Police Story series. Chan portrays a disgraced detective named Wing, and acts alongside such younger Hong Kong actors as Nicholas Tse, Charlene Choi and Daniel Wu. The story features a more dramatic focus, taking a darker and more serious tone.
[edit] DVD releases
In late 2004, Hong Kong's Intercontinental Video Limited released the remastered anamorphic widescreen Police Story Trilogy boxset in Region 0 NTSC format (playable in North America), featuring optional English subtitles and a choice of Chinese-language soundtracks. It should be noted that the original mono tracks, like on may other IVL DVDs, are out of sync. On December 19, 2006 Weinstein Company released Region 1 NTSC DVD (under their Dragon Dynasty label) with special features and deleted scenes (January 23, 2007 in Canada).
[edit] Trivia
- Chan started work on the film after a disappointing experience working with another director on The Protector, which was intended to be his entry into the American film market.
- The conclusion of the famous bus stunt sequence, where Chan causes the vehicle to stop by threatening to fire upon it with his tiny service revolver, was later "borrowed" in the movie Tango & Cash, which starred Chan's friend Sylvester Stallone.
- The shanty town chase inspired a similar sequence in Bad Boys II. There's a similar scene in the 2004 Thai film, Born to Fight.
- The crew nicknamed the movie "Glass Story" because of the number of panes of sugar glass broken during the final action sequence, a sprawling martial arts fight scene in a shopping mall.
- A stunt during this last sequence, in which Chan slides down a pole from several stories up, the lights near the pole had heated it considerably, resulting in Chan suffering second-degree burns to his hands.
- Chan's character in this movie appears to be the inspiration for the character Lei Wulong in the Tekken game series.
- The final stunt in 2 Fast 2 Furious is 'coincidently' similar to Chan's movie Police Story 4: First Strike. Chan used a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IV to jump on the sailing luxury speedboat. At the end of 2 Fast 2 Furious, Paul Walker & Tyrese Gibson did the same, but with a muscle car.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Police Story at the Internet Movie Database
- Intercontinental Video Limited Hong Kong
- Hong Kong Legends Jackie Chan DVDs
- Police Story Series Fansite
| Police Story |
|---|
| Police Story | Police Story 2 | Police Story 3 | Police Story 4: First Strike | New Police Story |
| Spin-off | Project S |
