Police Story
1985 ‘警察故事’ Directed by Jackie Chan
Synopsis
You may know the name, but the game has changed.
Chan Ka Kui is a Hong-Kong policeman, who single handedly captures and arrests a big drug lord. The drug-lord then frames Chan with the murder of a corrupt cop. Now a fugitive cop killer, Chan Ka Kui must try to catch the drug lord and clear his name.
Popular reviews
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The first 15 minutes of Police Story are probably not the wisest thing to watch when you're in the middle of a dodgy spell with your asthma.
With one of the most dangerous and insane car chases ever filmed, making The Blues Brothers look like Herbie Goes Bananas, ploughing through a shanty village with no regard for life, limb or automobile and then progressing on to an utterly astonishing fight and stunt scene in and around a moving bus, it is one of the greatest openings to an action film of all time.
Police Story is a film I've seen several times although not for quite a number of years and it really does stand up beautifully. I'm not even…
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Part of the No Rewatch November 2012 Project.
It started out as a bad idea. Having never been a particular fan of Jackie Chan, I got a wild idea that I should go back to some of his early films, the ones that made him into a legend. It seemed only fair to give the guy a real shot at winning me over. So I picked up Police Story and gave it a look. By ten minutes in, all my worst fears about his movies had been confirmed: heavy cheese with a dose of pretty decent martial arts fight scenes. The characters were cardboard and silly and the writing was even worse.
But then something happened that I just wasn't…
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One of the best action movies I've ever seen, and a pure distillation of Chan's balance of balletic martial arts choreography with Keatonesque physical comedy. Chan uses each set to its maximum potential, then leaves it in ruins after he exhausts each.
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That epic fight scene in the mall is Gene Kelly with an umbrella or Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling; hard to begrudge all the low comedy and generic plotting that gets us there.
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Police Story sits unparalleled as my favourite movie. Indeed it is the corner stone of my film collection, the movie I most watched, apart from Enter the Dragon.
Simply put this movie is a showcase demonstrating that Jackie Chan could traverse the gap from the slapstick kung fu comedies of the late 1970s to a real world modern day 1980s action thriller as both the lead actor and indeed as the director.But the magical thing about these films (Yes Police Story has 3 direct sequels: Police Story 2, Super Cop & First Strike and 1 indirect sequel; 2004’s New Police Story) is they represent a phase in Jackie Chan’s life where he literally burned up the celluloid with his frightening…
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A solid action-comedy with some fantastic set pieces. The film certainly could have been edited a bit tighter, but on the whole, I can see why Jackie Chan fans hold this film up as one of his best.
Recent reviews
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Lots of people wearing sweatpants in ‘80s Hong Kong.
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Saved entirely by the opening and final scenes
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A solid action-comedy with some fantastic set pieces. The film certainly could have been edited a bit tighter, but on the whole, I can see why Jackie Chan fans hold this film up as one of his best.
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I don't have much to say, but if you like Jackie Chan movies, this is certainly one of his better films.
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So damn good. The action sequences and comedic content perfectly balanced in this Jackie Chan classic. Moreso than in any of other his films, Police Story illustrates Chan's Buster Keaton influence. The score is also phenomenal. Really enjoyed this.
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You cannot watch this film without saying "HOLY SHIT" out loud several times, and that's something, and I can see why some list it on their favorite martial arts films of all time. But man is there some tedious "comedy" (Hong Kong comedy almost never works for me at the best of times, and it ain't near that here; I found Jackie's endless derogation of females tedious, even when it's used to hoist him on his own petard), and some of the most sketchy-ass plotting ever. I don't have high standards for realism in a movie like this, so if I'm actually thinking "wow, that's unrealistic", that's a problem. But then the next "HOLY SHIT" moment happens and you ask yourself how you could possibly care.
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That epic fight scene in the mall is Gene Kelly with an umbrella or Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling; hard to begrudge all the low comedy and generic plotting that gets us there.
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The first 15 minutes of Police Story are probably not the wisest thing to watch when you're in the middle of a dodgy spell with your asthma.
With one of the most dangerous and insane car chases ever filmed, making The Blues Brothers look like Herbie Goes Bananas, ploughing through a shanty village with no regard for life, limb or automobile and then progressing on to an utterly astonishing fight and stunt scene in and around a moving bus, it is one of the greatest openings to an action film of all time.
Police Story is a film I've seen several times although not for quite a number of years and it really does stand up beautifully. I'm not even…
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The story goes that Chan made a list of stunts he wanted to do, and Ed Tang wrote the screenplay around these stunts. Regardless of whether that's true or not, the resulting film is 100 minutes of awesome. There's absolutely no fat on the bone — Police Story is a blur of action set pieces and Chan's physical comedy.
And man, those set pieces are amazing. In fact, Police Story is bookended two of the best action scenes in film history (one of them the best mall-destruction bit in cinema...sorry Blues Brothers). The "car fight" bit halfway through is also magical. It's just joyous, endlessly creative stuff.