Jackie Chan
Police Story

On January 16, 2008, one of the greatest action films of all time will FINALLY arrive in Italy. A milestone in Hong Kong cinema, Jackie Chan's masterpiece, "Police Story".

It's impossible to talk about this film without having a "clear" idea of the character: Jackie Chan is the greatest action film star ever, there’s no doubt about it. The problem is that very few in Italy are truly aware of it. Since Jackie, at 48, arrived in America in 1998, he has started a series of comedic action films where his style was Americanized by 90%—his advanced age, the jokes akin to Mel Gibson’s, his comedic colleagues who steal the spotlight, the special effects that render him just another actor using tricks and stunt doubles. A total disaster! Jackie is still seen by many as "the funny little Chinese guy who knows how to fight." However, a very different reality exists: Jackie Chan is a force of nature! Those who say he is more gifted as a comedian than a martial artist have understood nothing! Jackie is a master of martial arts techniques and acrobatics. He has nothing to envy Bruce Lee for, even though the little dragon had a totally different genre. Jackie became famous for cleverly combining martial arts techniques with the slapstick comedy of silent cinema. Few in Italy have had the chance to be left literally speechless by the incredible skills of this artist.

For those who want to discover the REAL Jackie Chan, Police Story is the right film!

In 1985, Jackie Chan revolutionized Eastern action cinema! No more period films with schematic fights based on the apprentice and the master, but real modern adventures with terrifying and revolutionary actions and more current stories. Jackie founded his stuntman team, considered the best stunt group in the world! And it's precisely with this Police Story that Jackie and his men demonstrate (never expressed again at these levels) what they are capable of.

This film could easily appear in the Guinness World Record for the use of daring stunts.

An hour and a half of acrobatics at the limits of human capability! Breathtaking chases without editing tricks or computer graphics (which at the time they didn't even know what it was), martial arts fights that achieve an amazing technical level (one of the first films where Jackie experiments on screen with synchronized multiple fighting, that is, everyone against one simultaneously). But above all physical acrobatics beyond human conception.

Numerous accidents on the set: some even speak of two deaths. No insurance company is willing to underwrite Chan's and his team's acrobatic feats. In fact, Jackie himself pays the medical expenses for injuries on set.

You will see unimaginable things, done by both Jackie and especially by these madmen who surround him.

The plot is simply a pretext to unite together these spectacular acrobatic performances, Jackie is a policeman engaged in stopping a gang of criminals. PERIOD. Chan, between one spectacular stunt and another, carves out some funny comedic interludes where he shows us his talent as a comedian as well as a great athlete. His partner Maggie Cheung, excellent in the role of the feisty girlfriend, gives us moments of genuine fun.

The film is a crescendo of tension, drama, and adrenaline, with scenes that have made the history of action cinema, especially one in which, during a car chase, an entire village is destroyed, without tricks, in real life, with very few shot changes, in a completely artisanal manner! Things unthinkable for Americans, who always resort to special effects.

The film concludes with a legendary multiple fight in a shopping mall, where Jackie and his stuntmen risk their lives in every single shot. Entire glass windows shattered (due to the numerous broken glass, the film was called "glass story"), stuntmen hurl themselves deadweight onto escalators, incredible leaps from railings, acrobatic numbers with motorcycles, punches and kicks that genuinely hit their targets! Today doing such a thing might be almost prohibited (considering that today's stuntmen routinely use much more protection and tricks than back then).

Amidst this extravaganza of daredevilry, the legendary Jackie Chan, very young and I would say... reckless!, performs the most spectacular stunt: he threw himself onto a metal pole, sliding as if he were a firefighter from about 12 meters in height, with the difference that the pole... was decorated with Christmas lights and real light bulbs, and at the end, there was a glass window waiting for him! A sequence that, for its spectacularity, is repeated several times from different angles. That’s... the Jackie we won’t see anymore.

Jackie's direction does not disappoint: good shots, fast pace, smooth story, good photography. This film is the action bible! And it must be seen by all genre fans at all costs.

The legendary stunts:

- Jackie hangs onto a moving bus with the handle of an umbrella! Fighting and dodging cars passing close by!!!

- Two stuntmen, in one scene, had to break through the windshield of a bus and fall onto the roof of a car, but due to a near-fatal error, they slam their backs onto the asphalt!!

- In the pole stunt, Jackie sustained serious injuries that affected him for life: he fractured two spinal rings and suffered severe burns on his hands and back due to the light bulbs. He nearly killed himself falling onto the glass window.

- The scene of the cars destroying the village was recently paid homage to in Bad Boys 2, obviously with special effects.

- Many of the stunts you see in this film have been emulated by every action director in the world, but with always inferior results.

Now, the DVD of this film will arrive in Italy in January! Abandon those "Rush Hour" and "The Tuxedo" foolishness once and for all, and finally discover what extraordinary talent lies behind the Jackie Chan brand.

Enjoy the film, all genre enthusiasts.