Once a Cop, La Vengadora

This film is being billed in the USA as a Jackie Chan flick. Don't buy into the hype - Jackie has a short (2 minutes approx.) cameo in a scene that makes little sense and is hardly tied in to the rest of the film. His presence in drag is unexplained, and worse still his voice has been dubbed by somebody who apparently spent two hours at the dentist's before filming, and was still under the effects of the anaesthetic - or at least it seems that way.

The rest of the film is passable - some good shots of Hong Kong and Guangzhou, but some glaring plot holes as well. Nothing to write home about, but a fairly good performance from Michelle Yeoh at least brings this up to a 5 out of 10 effort.

Although not as good as the first, this film still contains plenty of action. The action is more shooting/explosions than martial arts though. About a bunch of terrorists and good guys kicking the crap out of them. Rated R: for Violence.

This spin-off of "Supercop" is one of my favorite Hong Kong action movies. "Once a Cop" ("Chao ji ji hua") kicks off with a rousing high-energy title sequence and never lets up. The story is meatier than most action yarns: a Chinese policewoman (Michelle Yeoh) tracks a gang of bank robbers to Hong Kong, unaware that their ringleader is her fiancé, an ex-cop (Yu Rong-Guang). This intriguing set-up searches the emotions of the main character as it explores the cultural clash between get-rich-quick Hong Kong and the duty-bound mainland. There's also a sympathetic subplot about a Hong Kong cop who's attracted to Yeoh but feels intimidated by both her and her fiancé. The action sequences are all superbly executed, credibly grounding their martial arts in the actors' own athletic abilities (rather than falling back on wires and special effects). And Yeoh's graceful gymnastic prowess has never been used to better advantage.

Unfortunately, not everything about "Once a Cop" clicks. The relationship between Yeoh and Yu isn't developed as deeply as it could be (though it's still more interesting than most action-movie romances), and it ultimately doesn't make the most of the premise's irony. Jackie Chan's cameo (reprising his "Supercop" role) is awkward and not well integrated into the story. And Alain Guernier as the central villain gives the worst impersonation of an Englishman I've ever seen (even if John Malkovich's Dr. Jekyll in "Mary Reilly" comes pretty darn close). But pound per pound - and punch per punch - "Once a Cop" is as thrilling and exciting as any reality-based martial-arts movie to come out of the Crown Colony. Anyone wowed by Michelle Yeoh's work in "Tomorrow Never Dies" should definitely check out this

With a crime spree occurring across Hong Kong, and all the crimes traced to the work of one major crime syndicate, the police look to focus their resources. Having recently proved how tough and resourceful she is, Officer Hua Yang is sent to help a couple of detectives. It becomes immediately evident that the group is a lot more organised than they expected but Hua shakes off her adviser role and takes direct action – but when she discovers that the leader of the group is none other than one Ah Fung, Hua's old boyfriend.

On the basis of the wonderful Michelle Yeoh being in it, I decided to give this film a go to see if it was any good. From the very start I was amused to see how cheap it looked, although it may have aged a little bit as well. As with all these type of films, plot usually comes second to the action and here is no different. The story is not that well delivered and I found myself with too many characters to care about and too little logic in the plot. It did jump around a bit and it relied too heavily on the former relationship between Jessica and Ah – but it never bothered to really make us care about either of them as real people or get emotionally involved with them as was necessary if this method was to work. Sadly it didn't work and the film was quite unengaging for the most part.

Of course with good action scenes this shouldn't matter too much, but it doesn't do anything that special on the action front. This is not to suggest it is no good, because the gun play and various fights are reasonably good, it is just that they don't really do anything special and they do lack a certain amount of style. The fights do feel like they were done on a budget and, like the rest of the film, they did lack imagination and effort. The cast didn't do anything that good but in fairness my version was badly dubbed so it is hard to tell. Yeoh is a great actress who I have seen been playful, exciting, sensitive and tragic in many films but here she has nothing to do although one or two of her fight scenes hint at her ability. I never really got into the characters played by Sui-Wong, Yu and Chau as they didn't make much of an impression, although I thought that Wei was good. Bill Tung is there in a small role and does his usual stuff but were they really so desperate to attract an audience that they had to make Jackie Chan demean himself in an unfunny drag cameo?

Overall this is an average film at best. The presence of one or two famous names suggests that it will be better than average but in reality it is all a bit workmanlike and lacking effort. The plot relies on the characters being developed and, when they're not, it means that it isn't very engaging as a story. The action is OK but nothing special and I never went 'wow' or anything like that. The script is average and the performances (dubbed or not) didn't really do anything to improve on the situation – Yeoh in particular was disappointingly bland for large sections.

Depending on your whereabouts in the world, this film may go under any one of the following titles: Supercop 2 (USA), Once a Cop, Police Story 3 Part 2, Police Story 4: Project S, Police Story V, Project S (UK), Supercop (also UK). Whatever the title, do not be fooled into thinking that this is a Jackie Chan film; yes, he does appear in the movie, but only briefly and in a scene that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film.

Michelle Yeoh, however, plays the same character as she did in Police Story 3 (which was known as Supercop in the US and did star JC—are you keeping up?), a hard-as-nails mainland Chinese cop named Yang. She is called to Hong Kong to lend her expertise and assist in the apprehension of a gang of Chinese criminals who are pulling heists right left and centre and peeing-off the local cops.

The police operations are going swimmingly until Yang recognises one of the criminals as Cheng Feng, her boyfriend from China who left for HK to find his fortune, and the two become reacquainted under somewhat difficult circumstances.

With a decidedly routine plot, Project S needed to be something special in the action department in order to compensate, but despite some cracking fight action towards the end, there is far too much quiet time spent between bouts. The action is also geared towards gun-play rather than martial arts, so those expecting a full on fight-fest will be disappointed. That is not to say that Yeoh and co-stars don't display some wonderful skills from time to time; the high kicking action is pretty good when it happens—it just doesn't happen often enough.

The final half an hour, which has the gang attempt a daring bank robbery, offers the best dose of action, with Yang going up against a foe twice her size (and kicking ass, of course!).

Director Stanley Tong and star Michelle Yeoh have both made far better films than this, but if your expectations are not set too high, you may find Project S a reasonable way to spend your time (although 105 minutes was a tad too long for me!).