Supercop (Police Story 3)

Great action scenes with a young Jackie Chan doing all his own stunts, including some pretty incredible ones. It is also a very funny comedy movie. Sure he's not an awesome actor or anything but he is definitely likable and a funny guy with an amazing level of talent for the physical fight scenes and stunt work. We really enjoyed this one.

After the dissapointing Police Story 2, Jackie steps off the director chair and let's Stanley Tong do the job. This entry in the series tones down the acrobatic fights trademarked by Chan, focusing more in vehicle chases, shoot-outs and regular (but well coreographed of course) hand to hand fights, and instead of Ka Kui running around Hong Kong, he travels from country to country while infiltrating a gang of drug dealers. Funnily enough this feels more of a natural sequel to the original than the jarring Police Story 2. The addition of Michelle Yeoh's Capt Yang brings a lot of freshness and contrast to Chan's Ka Kui wacky and hot-blooded persona, and steals the show for the most part. The only downside is that most of the secondary characters from the previous movies are either ditched or have just small roles. Still, you can go wrong with this one.

I've seen a lot of Jackie Chan films and its rare to find gem in the many jewels in the films he's made. There are real drama films like Crime Story, or the frentic action in the original police story, there's the three-brother action in Project A, there's the frenctic kung-fu in Drunken Master 2, and then there's this gem.

This is certainly the best in the police story series, the action is fantastic, the humor brilliant, the story well put together. The duo of Michelle Kahn (Yeoh) and Chan is amazing, and Yeoh almost steals the show in her own right - her persona and her instance to do her own stunts (like Chan) makes her a marvel to watch - this is why she is so damn good in Tomorrow Never Dies, but its a shame the director of TND never captured her in the same way Stanley Tong does!

Chan maybe getting older, and its getting harder and harder for him to surpass his best. In that respect, this is possibly the last, best action film we'll get to see. I enjoyed it, and I'm sure most chan fans will enjoy it too.

My Rating: 9/10.

Jackie Chan is the "Supercop" of the title in Stanley Tong's martial arts caper. Forget about the plot and just sit back and enjoy the spectacular stunts, broad comedy, (it's even funnier in this dubbed version), and first rate action sequences including an absolutely terrific climatic chase scene involving a train, a helicopter and a rope ladder between the two while the redoubtable Michelle Yeoh proves to be every bit Chan's equal when the chips are down. Not a Chan classic perhaps but hugely entertaining nevertheless.

POLICE STORY III - SUPER COP (Jing Cha Gu Shi III: Chao Ji Jing Cha)

(USA: Supercop)

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Technovision)

Sound format: Mono

Police officer Chan Ka-kui (Jackie Chan) goes undercover within a criminal gang whose millionaire boss (Kenneth Tsang) plans to dominate the Asian heroin trade.

Though co-scripted by Chan regular Edward Tang (also responsible for the first two entries in the "Police Story" franchise), POLICE STORY III - SUPER COP is slightly darker in tone than its immediate predecessors and offers a much more streamlined combination of comedy, drama and action. This shift in focus was occasioned by the hiring of stuntman-turned-director Stanley Tong (RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, CHINA STRIKE FORCE, etc.), who keeps a tight rein on the film's narrative excesses whilst indulging some of the most spectacular action set-pieces ever filmed, *anywhere*.

Nothing in the first half of the movie - Chan's fight with gymnastic beauty Sam Wong at a mainland police training center; his initiation into Tsang's criminal gang by helping the villain's brother (Yuen Wah) escape from a prison work camp; a battle with police in a crowded marketplace, etc. - can prepare viewers for the *astonishing* climactic confrontation between Good and Evil, involving a series of hair-raising car stunts, Chan dangling (apparently unassisted) from a rope-ladder beneath a helicopter as it swings *high* above the streets of Kuala Lumpur (!), and the final hand-to-hand battle on top of a speeding train, upon which the aforementioned helicopter has become precariously entangled - and not a CGI shot in sight! Filmed with breathtaking gusto by artists working at the top of their game, this is commercial cinema at its most astounding (check the outtakes during the final credits, in which various participants come perilously close to serious injury or *death* during filming!).

Maggie Cheung makes another extended cameo appearance as Chan's beleaguered girlfriend, though the film is stolen clean away by Michelle Yeoh (billed as 'Michelle Khan' in some prints) as a mainland policewoman who assists Chan in his undercover operation, and who proves to be Chan's equal during the fast and furious combat sequences (the character proved popular enough to warrant her own spin-off feature, PROJECT S, in 1993!). Easily the best of the "Police Story" series to date, and one of the most memorable efforts to emerge from HK in the last fifty years, POLICE STORY III - SUPER COP is a winner. Followed by FIRST STRIKE (1996).

As usual, the movie was re-edited and rescored for its 1996 US debut under the title SUPERCOP. That version is missing only a few minutes of material, but should be avoided nonetheless.

(Cantonese and Mandarin dialogue)