Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. This week: The latest Fast & Furious movie has been pushed back a full year, so why not cope with its absence by checking out some other movies with car chases in them?
Police Story (1985)
Not content to simply be one of the most talented physical performers the world has ever seen, Jackie Chan is also a hard motherfucker. Although his onscreen persona is of an indefatigable goofball (especially in the films he writes and directs himself), off screen Chan is legendary for his ability to stoically tolerate injuries that would make the toughest of tough guys weep. Here’s one example: On the set of his 1985 action hit Police Story, the martial artist dislocated his pelvis, burned the skin off of his palms, and sustained a back injury that, had he been born just a little less lucky, could have paralyzed him for life. And he still went out for a drink afterwards.
To be clear, none of this happened while filming the chase sequence that opens the film. (The injuries in question were from this stunt.) But Chan’s masochistic dedication to his art is obvious from Police Story’s first set piece. It starts as a foot chase, as Inspector Chan Ka-Kui (Chan) scrambles to catch up with crime boss Chu Tao (Chor Yuen) and his minions after they slip out of a police dragnet. Against a backdrop of makeshift dwellings built into the side of a hill, the cops and the bad guys fall all over each other, forming a chaotic tangle of people, animals, laundry, gas cans, tea kettles, and wicker baskets. It’s a comedic spectacle, no doubt. But for the characters, it’s also breathtakingly dangerous, thanks to the bullets flying in every direction.
Chu Tao and his men find a car. Three cars, actually, which take off in different directions, only to turn around after discovering that the cops have blocked all roads out of the settlement. There’s nowhere to go but straight through, and so they barrel into a fruit stand and down the hill, Chan close behind in a commandeered vehicle of his own. No one swerves or dodges anything, although Chan—ever the good guy—honks for pedestrians to get out of the way as he comes crashing through the flimsy structures. Glass and wood and sheets of corrugated metal are everywhere. Explosions that may or may not have been planned ahead of time are triggered left and right. The cars are battered and barely running by the time their undercarriages scrape the road below. Combined, this chase has the destructive power of a bulldozer—and it’s all happening for real. Recklessness was a given on Hong Kong film sets in the ’80s, especially Jackie Chan movies, where the boss was the biggest daredevil of them all.
Since then, the Chinese film industry has started taking on-set safety more seriously (although Chan, ironically enough, had one of the closest calls of his career in 2017, when he nearly drowned on the set of his film Vanguard). Hong Kong action filmmaking has also made its way abroad, thanks in part to Chan’s crossover success in the West. You can see his influence in Bad Boys II, in which Michael Bay pays homage to Police Story’s first sequence—or, if you’re feeling less generous, totally rips it off. 2017’s xXx: Return Of Xander Cage was less literal in its pilfering, but the spirit was the same when Vin Diesel skateboarded down the side of a mountain with techno pumping in his earbuds. Neither of those imitations, though, command the same jaw-dropping awe as that original car chase. Is it just that the novelty is gone, or is there a dark alchemy in watching someone put their actual life at risk for our amusement? Ask Jackie Chan—or Tom Cruise, for that matter.
Availability: Police Story is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
15 Comments
If you want to watch it in early 1990s “I’ll take whatever I can get” VHS style, there’s 4:3 ratio, 480p, English-dubbed version on YouTube:There’s at least one other better free version on YouTube, but it’s not as charmingly awful as this one.
Came for Cannonball Run. Left disappointed (although I love Police Story).
He’s the man himself describing how one of the film’s most famous stunts went horribly wrong. I used to watch this on VHS over and over again wondering ‘How the hell did they do that?….’
“Who am I” from 1998 has great driving and Jackie in full on black face/African warrior garb. It’s got it all. Evo iv
I don’t know why Police Story’s been getting so much press lately, but it sure makes me happy. One my favorite Jackie Chan films alongside Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Legend of Drunken Master.And not necessarily a movie non-enthusiasts are aware of anymore, as the death of the video store hugely reduced visibility for much of the genre.
We should always and forever lament the death of the video store. Netflix and other services never seem to have anything I’m looking for.
“When Jackie Chan is behind the wheel, it’s the car you need to worry about”This title comes very close to making sense without actually making sense. Is it supposed to surprising to worry about the car rather than Chan? Isn’t worrying about the car essentially the same as worrying about Chan, given that Chan is inside the car? Does Chan battle or otherwise work against the car in some manner, and thus it’s ironic that Chan, who is made of flesh and bone, would triumph over a large metal vehicle?
Given the description in the paragraph up there, it sounds like I do not need to worry about the car or Chan at all. They’re indestructible. It’s the pedestrians, sidewalk objects, and other things in or near the road that we should be worried about.
Assuming you are neither Chan nor his car, then you’re probably about to be smashed by one or both of them. If Chan is currently inside the vehicle, then it stands to reason that the car is where your worries should primarily lie.
Not to minimise Cruise’s physical stunts, but Jacky Chan is the only person capable of being as crazy as Jacky Chan and still be alive.
The final fight scenes in the mall feature more broken glass than any other movie I’ve seen. They shatter damn near every window and glass case in a fight that feels never-ending. It’s remarkable!
Came Here for The Cannonball Run reviews…..much disappoint.
Ah, the golden age.
saw this for the first time last year in a packed theatre and it was some of the most fun i’ve ever had at the movies. what a blast.
I guess there’s a kind of car chase/car stunt theme going on lately on the site, but it’s still weird to me to have an article about Police Story that’s all about the boring car stuff and somehow doesn’t mention that this movie has the single greatest fight scene in the history of cinema at the end. I’m still not sure whether a single scene can justify a movie, but if so, this is the one. Apart from that, the movie has a lot of that consistently awful Jackie Chan comedy and is generally a drag for over an hour… but then you get that big fight, and it’s mindblowing.