New Police Story
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I have never found Jackie Chan funny. In fact I shouldn’t narrow it down to only him. I do not find Chinese or Japanese humor funny. It could be the dubbing that normally takes place in the US releases, but I always found the slap sticky humor to be more annoying than anything. Going back to Jackie Chan, while his feet, hands, and stunt work are pure mouth opening amazing, his goofy slapstick never aloud me to take him seriously. I always found his best work to be WHO AM I? with him downplaying the comedy, and his dramatic work in CRIME STORY. In the NEW POLICE STORY Chan skips the comedy all together and plays a truly tortured individual.

Inspector Wing (Jackie Chan) is in charge of taking down a gang that’s targets are cops. After robbing a bank instead of fleeing they end up sticking around to kill as many police as possible. It is all a game for them. Wing takes his squad of police officers out to catch the criminals. What happens though is that each of his team are picked off one by one in one of the films highlight moments. I’m talking picked off in a great way. I’d take this over SAW any day. With all dead but him he dives into a state of despair and drinking. His engagement is called off, he is no longer a cop, and he ends up lying in his own vomit in some alley every night. In comes a young man Fung (Nicholas Tse as the comic relief) or PC 138 (or whatever) as Wing’s new partner to hunt down the gang. Soon Wing breaks out of his slump and realizes that he is a cop first, and they must be stopped.

This is Chan’s best work I feel. Watching movies like RUSH HOUR and AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, he never seems to have any range as an actor. Sure he can kick and make funny faces, but does that make his movies good? Not at all. Look at any recent Steven Seagal movies. Here though he has range, and still kicks ass, literally. Benny Chan’s NEW POLICE STORY is a movie that visually is beautiful, the acting is very good, and has more action than something that I have seen in the theaters in some time. Watch this movie to see the explosion in the police station. Simply put the CGI on that was this year’s effect. I had to rewind twice.

Now one issue I had was when I was first introduced to the gang that is taking out the cops. They were kids. I’m not talking little kids, but extreme kids! Ever seen those rad kids from BMX BANDITS? Kicking ass on their moto-scooters! Look out! Okay, I’m done with the sarcasm. What is done well here with the gang is really two things. The first is that the leader of the gang Joe (played well by Daniel Wu) gets a small backstory to explain his hatred of cops, and ends up coming across at times as a sympathetic character. At first Wu seemed to learn from the overacting school of Yu Rong guang, but tones it down into again a smart, cop killing, villain.

Overall this is an action/drama movie. Notice the slash between the two? It has some slow dramatic moments, yet also has some visually amazing action sequences. If you are a fan of Asian cinema, or just like a good movie in general, run to check out this film. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

This is a guys movie that has enough emotion that you could get away with watching it with you spouse without her getting bored. I know I did. Hell, I think mine is now a fan of chop-suey films. Yea for me!

Added:  Thursday, May 04, 2006
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