Police Story (1985) Review: Jackie Chan Breaks Everything

Is Police Story worth watching?

Yes. Police Story is one of the foundational action films of the 1980s, and its best set pieces remain astonishing four decades later. Jackie Chan directs and stars, and he stages practical stunts with a ferocity and wit that almost no modern action film matches. The reservation is everything in between: the plot is threadbare and the slapstick comedy can grate, so the film is at its best when it stops talking and starts moving.

What is Police Story about?

Chan plays Chan Ka-kui, a dedicated and slightly hapless Hong Kong police inspector. After a sting operation against a powerful drug lord spirals into a shootout and a destructive chase through a hillside shanty town, Ka-kui manages to bring the boss in more or less single-handed. The case depends on the testimony of the gangster’s secretary, Selina (Brigitte Lin), and Ka-kui is assigned to protect her until the trial. That job, and the gang’s efforts to walk free, drag him into a series of escalating scrapes, while his long-suffering girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung) grows increasingly suspicious of the woman he is guarding.

Police Story is a Hong Kong production in Cantonese, directed by Jackie Chan and running 99 minutes. Bill Tung plays Ka-kui’s genial superior, and director Chor Yuen appears as the crime boss. The film won Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards and launched a long-running franchise.

Stunts that stopped being stunts

The opening chase sets the tone. Cars plough straight down a hillside through a village of makeshift shacks, and the destruction is real rather than suggested: timber, tin and glass flying in every direction. Shortly afterwards Chan stages a sequence involving a double-decker bus and an umbrella that remains one of the purest pieces of physical filmmaking in the genre, funny and frightening in equal measure.

What distinguishes Chan from other action directors is legibility. He shoots fights and falls in wide, steady frames and often shows an impact from more than one angle, so the audience can see that the risk was genuine. The film’s most famous stunt, which comes late, is legendary both for its sheer nerve and for the injuries it cost Chan and his team. It is impossible to watch without flinching.

Chan the clown and Chan the action hero

Chan’s screen persona is built on vulnerability. Ka-kui gets hurt, panics, improvises and occasionally looks ridiculous, which makes his triumphs feel hard-won rather than superhuman. The fight choreography reflects this: he uses furniture, railings and whatever is to hand, turning each space into a playground of props.

Maggie Cheung, early in her career, is a lively comic foil, and Brigitte Lin brings a cool glamour that the film does not always know what to do with. Bill Tung’s easygoing police chief is a steady presence who would become a series fixture.

Where the comedy wears thin

Between the set pieces, the film sags. The procedural plot is barely there, and several scenes of domestic farce, built on misunderstandings and slammed doors, go on far longer than their jokes can support. The humour is broad in the Hong Kong commercial style of the period, and some of it, particularly the way the women are used as comic props, has dated. The film also switches tones abruptly, from mugging to real menace, in ways that can jolt modern viewers.

Who should watch Police Story?

It is required viewing for anyone who loves action cinema, stunt work or Hong Kong film history, and a great introduction to Chan at his peak. At 99 minutes it moves quickly. Violence is frequent but largely bloodless: bruising brawls, gunfire, crashes and a great deal of shattered glass, plus some mild language and innuendo. It works for teenagers and up.

For more from the same era and school:

• Project A, Chan’s period action comedy that shows the same stunt-first philosophy two years earlier.
• The Legend of Drunken Master, a later Chan showcase with arguably his finest pure fight choreography.

The verdict

Police Story is a film of astonishing highs and unremarkable lows, but the highs are among the greatest achievements in action filmmaking. Forgive the creaky plot and the overlong comic interludes, and you get Jackie Chan at the height of his daring, putting his body on the line for every frame.

Rating: 4/5