Police Story![Image](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0499/6946/3452/products/CoverArt_1_10117ce9-2a41-4cf8-9712-a0d59f67b3ce.jpg?v=1603443509)
So I am checking out lots of Asian movies, particularly those of the martial arts variety...or just action in general. Anyone with a serious interest in old Hong Kong or Asian action movies knows that it can be a bit of a pain finding a good version to watch. A lot of these movies suffer from edits, censorship, bad dubbing (though some people actually enjoy those), bad visuals due to old, damaged prints, poorly translated subtitles, not to mention there often being multiple versions or "cuts" of a film so you don't know which one to watch. I found a cool site called Hong Kong Rescue that tries to do definitive versions of some of these movies. They are technically a bootleg site, but the work they put into this stuff is impressive and they have quite a few Jackie Chan movies.
So I checked out their release of Police Story. I'll copy paste from their site what makes the HKR version of this special:
"After many years of neglect, Jackie Chan has finally started to get some respect on home video. However, our release of Police Story stands head and shoulders above the rest for a few reasons.
First, we took the unprecedented step of completely restoring the Japanese Extended Version.
For many people, myself included, the Japanese Extended Version of Police Story, with it's extended opening and closing, alternate credits and outtakes, and additional scenes and re-edited scenes, is actually superior to the Hong Kong theatrical cut.
Until now, it's only been available on a Japanese laserdisc and as a bonus on a 2013 Japanese Blu-ray.
The source used on the Japanese Blu-ray was in terrible shape. It's obviously an extremely worn and damaged 35mm print many generations removed from the original negatives, that apparently haven't survived.
It even includes burnt-in Japanese subtitles on the right side of the image, which is distracting for English-speaking viewers and covers up important parts of the image.
What we did was to use the recent 4K restoration of the Hong Kong version for all scenes we could, and then fully restoring the Japanese extended scenes and color-grading them to match up seamlessly with the Hong Kong version.
We used Digital Vision Phoenix and The Pixel Farm's PFClean to remove thousands of instances of dirt, dust, scratches and broken frames.
We even took it a step further and removed ALL the burnt-in Japanese subtitles using a variety of methods that are too complex to describe.
Many people said this couldn't be done, but we worked frame-by-frame for several months and managed to make it look completely seamless.
This is an example of how we're willing to go above and beyond in service of classic Hong Kong cinema.
The subtitles:
As is our usual policy, we spent considerable time re-translating the dialog to ensure our subtitles are the most accurate on the market.
But we went a step further and had the Police Story theme song ("The Hero Story") translated into English for the very first time.
A carefully-selected collection of audio tracks:
Our release includes a more comprehensive audio selection than any other.
Finally, you have the option to toggle between every audio track that you’d want for this film, including no less than four commentaries."
So I checked out the extended Japanese cut. It's basically a comedy, action movie. I had a lot of fun. Jackie's fun to watch in much the same way Bruce Campbell is, he's really in his element when he's doing wacky stuff and light hearted comedy and he does it with a very old school flair (very Buster Keaton/Charlie Chaplin) and lot of slap sticky, physicality. He can be a bit too silly at times, but he's generally very entertaining when doing the goofball, comedy stuff. I don't know why, but watching this made me think of how fun a movie with Jackie Chan and Bruce Campbell in their young, prime would be.
Anyway, the plot is fairly standard stuff for a cop movie, but the characters are great (particularly the two female leads) and the actors put in good performances. The action is far and away the best part of the movie with awesomely choreographed fight scenes and crazy stunts. No CGI, no stunt doubles, everything just looks real, and the action is
FAST. Blink and you'll miss something. I love it. These are what make a lot of these types of movies so much fun to watch. There's some amazing moments involving vehicles in this film as well.
![Image](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F66.media.tumblr.com%2F6ab26d69a4b372a1d4e5714695320cef%2Ftumblr_oq239dCYrn1rmrpdmo1_400.gif&f=1&nofb=1)
If I have some minor gripes they are these. The comedy stuff can feel a bit much at times, but I found it mostly enjoyable. There's a moment where Jackie busts into an impromptu dance sequence that put a smile on my face. The movie seems to almost go into romcom territory at one point though, which may not appeal to some people. At times I was getting impatient waiting for the next action scene. I appreciate when movies like this attempt to tell a story instead of just being mindless action...but I'm kind of here for the mindless action
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
Don't go into this expecting just action scene after action scene. The middle part of the movie kind of forces you action junkies to be patient...maybe for a bit too long. At least it gives the action sequences a chance to breathe and stand out more. Another small gripe, one crazy stunt Chan does get replayed two times. This kind of took me out of the movie a bit. I expect instant replays from sports, MMA, and pro wrestling...but not from a movie. Granted the stunt was awesome, but it still felt weird.
![Image](https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Jackie-Chan-Police-Story-bus.gif)
Overall though, a fun movie with some decent comedy, good characters, and AMAZING action. Highly recommended and I can't wait to see the other Policy Story movies. In fact, Hong Kong Rescue has Policy Story 3, but not 2 oddly enough.
Feel free to recommend me some other movies like this by the way. I have watched a lot of Asian martial arts or action movies, but much of it is more modern stuff like the Ip Man movies, The Raid, The Raid 2, Hero, House of Flying Dagger, Sha Po Lang (Killzone).The Man from Nowhere, On Bak, etc. I'm looking to check out some more older stuff as well as more niche, obscure, and even cult, B movie, type stuff