Jackie Chan's Police Story is a landmark film for both the Honk Kong action genre and the career of Jackie Chan.

Directed/written by Chan, Police Story has a basic plot as did all the films of that era and genre, and like most of the the films of Police Storys' kind, the script is nothing to be raved about. But the plot of the film is Jackie Chan, who plays a nice guy cop, struggling to convict the local gang lord.

The direction of the film is nothing special and by no means the best directing effort that Jackie Chan has given us, that responsibility falls to the underrated masterpiece "Miracles". However the job that Jackie does directing is sufficient and respectable. The standout out directing of the film comes with the fight scenes.

The performances in this film also vary with Jackie giving a very solid typical Chan nice guy up against it role, but this is by no means his best acting role, that can been seen in the Sammo Hung directed film "Heart of the Dragon". The other actors in the film also give as good a solid performance as Jackie with Bridgete Lin playing her part of the unwilling witness reasonably well, but neither does she display full acting potential. The standout acting comes from Maggie Cheung as Jackies' suffering girlfriend and Bill Tung as the sympathetic and funny police chief. None of the performances in this film is of a low enough standard to affect the quality of the film. 

The action in the film is what really separates this film from others with stunning contemporary choreography to suit the urbanised, modern setting, the action is some some of the greatest fight scenes ever put on camera. To begin with there is a shootout in the slum where Koo (ganglord) is making a drug deal, whilst being no John Woo style sequence, this serves as a nice starter for the film. This is then followed by the famous car run down the side of the hill and through the heart of the slum wrecking everything in sight. This is a breathtaking sequence that has since been shamelessly copied by Bad Boys 2. In the middle of the film is yet another standout sequence as Jackie tries to transport Bridgete Lin from her house to his. This is really the first scene where we get to see the awesome fast paced hand to hand combat that has since become the norm for all modern set martial art films. This sequence is fantastically choreographed, timed and seamlessly edited together to maximise the brutality of the scene. However, as tradition dictates, the standout fight sequence is at the end of the film. This sequence displays some of Chans' best choreography, stunts and camera/editing work. This sequence is now famous for two things, the amount of people sent through high density glass, which has to be said a phenomenal amount of people, and the stunt at the end where Jackie leaps from a 5th storey balcony, grabs hold of a pole and slides down through a glass roof (this has to be seen to be believed). Whilst the two for-mentioned factors are both uniquely brilliant, i think that the most impressive part of this fight sequence is Chans' ability to incorporate anything into the fight sequence and the sheer originality of the choreography, that for me has never been bettered. I also believe that the action in Police Story is some of the best filmed and edited action of Chans career helping to set the action apart from others.

Overall, Police Story, despite its unspectacular storyline and script and over running in the middle due to plot padding, is one of the best action films of all time displaying Chans best choreography, best filmed action and arguably his most spectacular stunt making this essential viewing for everyone. Afterall, we watch a Chan movie for the action!!

Sentiment: positive