Police Story 3: Supercop

This is a really fun movie. Jerry Bruckheimer could learn a thing or five from Stanley Tong. I can only give it 8 out of 10 because it's not exactly deep, y'know? It is light as a feather, but it's also fun, fun, fun -- far more interesting and surprising than any "action" film I've seen out of Hollywood in a long, long time, all of which have seemed to me to be recycling the same script, plot, characters, and score to desperation. (Beats me how people could shell out eight bucks a pop to see Enemy of the State aka Mercury Rising aka Absolute Power...when they could rent Supercop for two bucks and actually see something unexpected.)

Of course, this film stars Jackie Chan being his usual goofy self, deftly making his extraordinary skills as a martial artist, stuntman, and physical comedian look as natural as breathing, but the other amazing talent in this piece is exhibited by the fantastic stuntwoman Michelle Yeoh (aka Michelle Khan), the same woman who for the first time blew away many Western moviegoers in Tomorrow Never Dies.

I think this woman is made entirely of rubber and springs. Most of her stunts in this movie are actually scarier and more daring than most of Chan's, and some of the most brutal took more than one take. And she did a lot of them in a dress!

Fortunately, she is also in the sequel to this, Supercop II. It's seven years old, and I can hardly wait to rent it. (When was the last time you were in a hurry to see an action flick almost ten years old?) Too bad I can't say the same for Rush Hour, which I had to click off after less than 10 minutes because Chan's co-lead character was such an obnoxious idiot.

I really hope Hollywood learns from Chan and his Hong Kong associates, and not the other way around. Indicators are not positive. Keep your fingers crossed. Meanwhile, watch Supercop and enjoy something fresh.

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.

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.

Though this is billed as the official third entry in the "Police Story" series, it doesn't really feel like a part of it. The higher production values and the rapid changes of international locations give it an almost Bondian feel. The comedy has been touched-up a bit from the previous entry, and it is actually frequently funny (unlike, for example, the comedy in "Twin Dragons" or the "Lucky Stars" films). The action sequences - from the (literally) death-defying stunts to the dizzyingly fast fight scenes - are incredible. The plot is much stronger than usual for a Chan film, though sometimes it collapses into chaos (particularly in the massacre after the meeting of the drug lords, where it's hard to know who's killing whom, or why). Michelle Yeoh cannot quite match Jackie in the comedy department - she doesn't have his facial expressions or comic timing - but she more than matches him in the action scenes, and she shows off some fantastic moves. The version I saw was (acceptably) dubbed, but thankfully did not include the rap soundtrack that others mention. (***)

Dear Stupid American Dubbers:

I am quite frankly sick and tired of you butchering quite possibly every single film from overseas. Your inability to successfully even mildly recreate the experience as if it were in its native tongue continues to dazzle me. Even the grandest of grand films from around the world become less bearable to watch thanks to the pitiful, gut-wrenching dubbing. To further your skills in watering down all sorts of movies, you even disallow the ability for some movies to make it to the United States with a mere addition of subtitles. Is it really that hard to just ship the film with their native language and the translation on the bottom of the screen? Really? Here is a list of things you should avoid when dubbing a movie from any non-English-speaking country:

1) Do not re-edit the film. The movie is 108 minutes long because the makers wanted it to be that way. Do not chop any "unnecessary" scenes

2) Do not remove scenes that actually further explains the plot. That is stupid. Very stupid

3) Do not attempt to add any humor into the movie. Your job is to only translate—not translate and have a shot at stand-up comedy.

4) Do not add or change the soundtrack. You stupid imbeciles, why on earth is there hip-hop music in a Jackie Chan film? That's like throwing in a performance of Swan Lake during one of the intermissions in a hockey game.

5) Do not fix the sound effects. Why are you fixing the sound effects!!?!?

6) Why are we not using Chinese-Americans to help dub Chinese films!?!??

7) Stop. Changing. The. Storyline. You. Amateurs. You. Make. Me. Want. To. Throw. Something. Heavy.

8) Just don't dub the film. As a matter of fact, don't even follow these rules, because that would mean you are trying to dub. Don't do it, just allow the movie (in its entirety) to arrive here in the United States, and put it the reliable subtitles on the bottom. Please and thank you.

Despite Supercop being quite possibly the 38539th film to be ruined because of American dubbing, it remains an enjoyable film, and one that's quite different from the usual Chan fare. The film is about (after reading Wikipedia and IMDb because the dubbing sure messed that up) Chan going undercover with a beautiful agent (Michelle Yeoh) to track down a drug king.

The action is very intense, rougher than the usual Chan material; so if you can adjust your tastes, you'll be in for a wild ride. While the usual amount of well-choreographed fights are replaced by heavy action set pieces, the final half an hour will leave you absolutely breathless. If you are disappointed in the first 60 minutes, stick around for the last leg, when you'll see unbelievable stunt after unbelievable stunt. Jackie Chan's female version performs her best work here, as Yeoh combines grittiness with a hintage of sexuality that's very subtle but all-so-present.

Bottom Line: Supercop is not the best Jackie Chan work, but it still entertains and still will blow you away with some of the set pieces and amazing stuntwork involved. The typical Jackie Chan humor is replaced with intense and crazy action that extends from brutal hand-to-hand combat to guns and missiles all over the place. With that being said, the dubbing will hamper the quality of the film a lot, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. Maybe in the future we can figure out how to successfully translate movies in a way that can make everybody happy; but in the meantime we have to deal with disgusting hip-hop, terrible re-editing, bad voice work acting, and an all-around aura of obviousness that the translators didn't have a clue on what the Chinese filmmakers and Jackie Chan were trying to achieve with this film.

P.S. Stop dubbing movies. Please. Just subtitle them. Please.