#8 — Police Story

This is part of an illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Movies that if you read about but don’t watch, will summon a dead girl with the face of Olivier Megaton through your tv to make you see the world in shaky-cam vision — a googly-eyed loser who’s life was chopped up in the edit, hoping to be salvaged by reshoots. Last week I talked about America’s ultimate toy soldier movie, Commando.

Look, it’s Jackie Chan! *points to man hanging out the side of a double decker bus with an umbrella*

You haven’t seen him on this list until now. His vast and accomplished filmography is one of the reasons I had to tailor my action criteria to fit a certain mold. He’s not just a drunken boxer here, he’s an action cop, the kind that will do all kinds of crazy stuff so the police chief will yell at him. I think you get extra action points if you get yelled at by the chief.

I have to admit I’ve had a hard time connecting with the Jackie Chan experience for many years. I’m never engaged with the characters, story, or context, or even the tone. I think it might not have been until the John Wick sequels that I really began to turn the corner and understand the appeal. Chad Stahelski and his crew had been crafting all these absurd scenarios and setups for the sole purpose of giving Keanu something exciting to do, and I think it took some kind of reverse engineering of American action cinema’s revival to make me realize the Chan experience had always been the same thing.

Action will often draw comparisons to music and dance, because the creators are trying to find a parallel for an expression they know in their bones is art, but doesn’t always get the same treatment. John Wick riding a horse is necessary because it’s entertaining and fun to watch, but I think Officer Police Story stepping in doo-doo so he can moonwalk those mud cakes off his shoes is just as essential. Same with answering a room full of telephones at once. It may drive the narrative to a halt or temporary pause the story, but it’s all part of the celebration of action. The main thing is that things must be moving. There has perhaps never been a more capable actor of connecting action and theater than Chan, the kung fu counterpart to Gene Kelly on roller skates or Fred Astaire and his little cane or whatever he dances with.

I don’t know what’s left to say about the film itself, but it’s a perfect gateway into Chan’s work. It’s lean and straight to the point, opening and closing on the highest of notes. It’s impeccable action craft, but not without the more audience friendly presentation of something like Rumble in the Bronx or Supercop — the stuff that would air on cable during Jackie Chan marathons in the 90s. When I was like 10 I had this one friend that was kinda dumb, but he was really smart about one thing in that he knew Jackie Chan ruled, and I didn’t listen to him (mainly because I was busy watching JCVD fight in underground tournaments for his families honor, which is a defensible position, imo). Now I’m trying to make up for lost time.

The thing that is most amazing about Jackie Chan to me, and has only become evident in recent years, is his early training in the Peking Opera school. I’m not gonna elaborate by ripping all this info from Wikipedia and pretending I’m your Action School teacher, but basically a bunch of your favorite martial artists (including Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao) formed a Professor X-led performing arts group called the Seven Little Fortunes, which sounds like a super cute version of the Five Deadly Venoms. Only the best students got to be part of this, so Jackie was getting straight A’s on his action report card before his career even started.

I sometimes wonder what it must have been like for parents to send their kids through this program, or for a child to endure it without a real say in what they wanted. There are documented accounts of physical punishment in some of these schools. It stirs thoughts about the cost of excellence and the amount of sacrifice that is actually needed to achieve the thrills we comfortably watch from our couch. Maybe it was like a Lone Wolf & Cub situation where Dad sat him down with the choice of a shiny red ball or a poster of Enter the Dragon, and little Jackie happily chose the poster.

It makes me think of Scott Adkins’ “Art of Action” series on Youtube. Mark Dacascos shared a story about his mom training him with 20 minutes of horse stance, and any student that broke form would result in the entire class having to start over. It was brutal, but for some there was a lasting reward that was worth the pain. These performers have been channeling that pain into some of the most dynamic and exciting movies we can watch.

You can see that level of dedication, that obsessive quest for perfection, in nearly every performance from Chan, but it stands out in Police Story perhaps most of all. All manner of movement is captured on screen, from hanging out of moving vehicles to sliding down poles, to fighting, to physical comedy, it’s all there. He’s one of the greatest special effects you could watch. I rarely remember anything from his films outside his own stunt-work, but his physical feats have also provided some of the most memorable images in cinema, so what am I gonna say?

The climactic shopping mall scene is my favorite segment, even topping the opening primer. First of all, I think a shopping mall is one of the best places you can stage an action scene, and I think it’s criminal negligence that Hollywood has so underutilized this playground for destruction. Malls are virtually extinct now and we have yet to see Scott Adkins Guyver Kick someone through the storefront window of a Forever 21.

You can count on Jackie not wasting this opportunity to smash as much glass as possible in what is one of my favorite fight scenes ever choreographed. The amount of moves performed by the stunt team in a single take runs high, their speed is blistering, and the impact of the crashes and smashes is huge. People are thrown down stairs and escalators, and even plowed with a motorcycle. It’s capped by a stunt so dangerous that it gets replayed from multiple angles like a sports highlight. Chan slides down a pole decorated with lights that shatter and spark on his way down, until he finally crash lands in a display case. Even the music stops, as if the movie itself is gasping at the sight.

This is the level of punishment and dedication Jackie Chan has for the art of action. His body has been sacrificed at the alter of entertainment for decades, to a degree that I almost feel guilty as a casual observer. I can’t find a better way to honor him than to simply appreciate his craft. I think it’s what he would want. Your homework is to watch Police Story.