On a purely plot level, “Police Story” is, well, simply just that. Hong Kong police officer Chan Ka-Kui (Jackie Chan) is part of a special forces team tasked with bringing down drug smuggling kingpin Chu Tao (Chor Yuen) and his gang. But when corrupt officers and the machinations of Tao’s slick lawyer (Lau Chi-wing) let Tao walk free, Chan must go rogue to make sure justice is served.
It was a well-worn premise even at the time of the film’s release in 1985. It’s within this familiar framework, however, that “Police Story,” which screens at Woodmere on Tuesday, May 12, delivers one of the most visually inventive — and one of the funniest — martial arts movies ever put to screen. Both directed by and starring Jackie Chan, the kinetic stuntwork on display is more Buster Keaton than Bruce Lee.
While perhaps best known in America for his turns in family friendly action-comedies from the late 1990s and early 2000s (fellow millennials may fondly recall the seminal cartoon series “Jackie Chan Adventures”), Chan’s career began in the 1970s in the Hong Kong film industry, where his background in acrobatics, Chinese opera and martial arts made him a versatile star in films like 1978’s “Drunken Master.” Chan’s on-screen persona, a harried everyman who overcomes his opponents with his wits and his acrobatics rather than brute strength, translated well to period piece costume pictures and urban crime movies alike and found perhaps its purest and most satisfying expression in “Police Story.”
Chan as a performer understands what precious few action heroes do: that a willingness to be caught on the wrong foot or to be the butt of the joke endears you to the audience all the more. For every triumph, there’s a pratfall to balance it out. In a film loaded with some of the most ingenious action set pieces ever realized, the standout stunt is a gag involving a rolling chair, an office filled with ringing telephones, and an increasingly overwhelmed Chan trying to answer them all. It’s clear that Chan holds both physical comedy and action in equal regard because both are at different ends of what Chan truly loves: the joy of motion.
Chan’s instincts as a performer are complimented by his instincts as a director because of his understanding that so much of cinema is about physical space, and how a character moves through it. Set pieces, like Chan scaling a hijacked bus with the aid of an umbrella or the showstopping multilevel chase through a crowded mall in the film’s final act, are still stunning over 40 years later because of the way they allow the sets to become an extension of the performers.
When Chan kicks one of Tao’s goons, the point is not the impact of the kick, but how it impacts the space around them. As a result, the joys of the choreography are less like that of a modern tentpole blockbuster and more like witnessing Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp cause havoc in a factory in “Modern Times,” Gene Kelly dance, or Jacques Tati bring human chaos to a sleek and airless nightclub in “Playtime.”
“Police Story” stands as one of the greatest action movies ever made because in a genre all too frequently dismissed as “mindless,” it reminds us that the best of them are anything but.
“Police Story” screens at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 12, as part of the Tuesday Nights at the Movies series at Woodmere, 9201 Germantown Ave. in Chestnut Hill. The film is presented in Cantonese with English subtitles. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and light refreshments will be provided prior to the screening. Tuesday Nights at the Movies screenings are free to the public, but donations are greatly appreciated.
