Don't let that little 'Posted By' thing fool you ... this one's actually from Nick, but he's having massive computer problems so he passed it along to me and I'm putting it up from here.
So, here we go with a look at Jackie Chan's New Police Story. Will a return to his native Hong Kong also mean a return to the form that made him a massive star around the world? Well, it's a hell of a lot better than anything he's made in North America in a good long time, but it falls short of Chan's truly top-tier work. Read on ...
After having a string of poor North American movies come out in his name - The Medallion and The Tuxedo were both ridiculous - Jackie Chan deceided to leave Hollywood and return to Hong Kong hoping top recapture his glory days. The end result of this was New Police Story, which had Lebron-type hype along with it and was supposed to place him back on the top of it all again.
New Police Story revolves around once respected Police Inspector Wing, who after losing his entire strike team in a raid on a gang of young X-treme bank robbers falls into depression, losing his fiance and becoming a drunk. A year later he is teamed up with a newly transfered officer who coerces him back into action to avenge the deaths of his fallen teammates, taking on the same gang of thugs who killed them all a year ago. Stunts, fights and Jackie Chan mellodrama ensues.
It seems, though, with his time wasted in North America, his fighting and stunt style suffered as well. Be it age or Hollywood restriction it just seems it's not the same Jackie Chan as before. Sure, there's some great martial arts combat scenes between him and some of the younger actors he shares the screen with, but unfortunately for him Tony Jaa has stolen the martial arts thunder from him while he was out making crap like Shanghai Knights and Around the World in 80 Days. The stunts, as interesting as they are, also seem to suffer and labour - though he's still got some quickness in him for
running up walls and the side of buildings.
As I discussed with the oh-so-insightful Todd after my viewing of New Police Story, it's not fourth or fifth tier Jackie Chan, but unfortunately it's not first tier either. I still believe Operation Condor was one of his best. It seems to lie somewhere around second tier Chan, which compared with what he previously was releasing is still worth seeing.
The 2 disc all region Dvd comes with the usual special features (behind the scenes and making of features, trailers, cast and crew, a character chart) but my favourite is the Jackie Chan video for the theme song to New Police Story. The sun glasses he sports in there are nothing short of dazzling. There is an english menu for the special features but really, only the trailers and character listings are in english or have subtitles - the rest unfortunately do not.
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A perk of being the editor is that I get to throw my own two cents in ... while I agree that this is second tier Chan it's strong second tier and worlds better than most of what he made in North America - though I've got to say that I actually quite like the Shanghai films. The two huge plus sides: First Chan has finally revised his stock character into something with a little more depth that matches his actual age. No more juvenile clowning from a middle aged man. Second, this is the first Edison Chen performance that I've actually really enjoyed. I've seen him in other things where he didn't particularly cause me pain but in this one I had a lot of fun with him. You can find the DVD for sale here.