Project S

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.

After helping thwart a major hostage situation, "Jessica Yang" (Michelle Yeoh) is sent to Hong Kong to assist in a police matter there. As it so happens her fiancé, "David Chang" (Rongguang Yu) has just recently moved there because he supposedly wants to stabilize his financial situation prior to marrying her. While this may be true he also plans on robbing a large bank there with some help from an American criminal named "Roger Davidson" (Alain Guernier). What neither of them realize is that their paths are about to cross again in an unexpected way. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this film is an off-shoot of the "Police Story" series (featuring Jackie Chan as "Inspector Chan Ka Kui") and essentially follows "Police Story 3-Supercop". Yet, while Jackie Chan does have a rather brief (and bizarre) scene here it focuses almost exclusively on Michelle Yeoh. That being said it lacks the peculiar mixture of comedy and charisma that only Jackie Chan can give to a film. That's not to say that this film is necessarily bad, it's just that it doesn't have the same degree of excitement as any of the "Police Story" movies. Accordingly, I rate it as just average.

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

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.

This is a sequel to Supercop, but, Michelle Yeoh in the lead role. Though she is amazing, the film lacks the charm of Jackie Chan and makes this movie odd one out from the Police Story film series. To make things worse, Jackie Chan makes an unpleasant cameo in the untimely comedy, that makes no sense at all. Obviously, there are Thrilling action sequences to watch.