No classic but a step in the right direction for Jackie

Jackie Chan has always used the original 'Police Story' series as a kind of safety net whenever his career hits a rough patch. The original was his response to his disastrous US cop movie 'The Protector' while the third entry was his attempt to recapture local audiences after a few high-profile failures. With his recent Hollywood outings scraping the concrete beneath the bottom of the barrel (The Tuxedo, Around the World in 80 Days, Rush Hour 2) he's gone back to Hong Kong and basics again. However, this time round he takes a few more chances, abandoning his old comic character and supporting cast (Maggie Cheung, Uncle Bill) for a comparatively darker outing as a broken-down cop drinking his way to oblivion after some thrill-seeking rich kids led by a typically OTT Daniel Wu kill his entire team. Naturally redemption is on the menu, but the stunts aren't quite as over-the-top or as plentiful as before, while the (intentional) comedy is kept to a minimum.

It's not up to the standards of his best work in the past, but it's light-years ahead of his US pictures and is a welcome return to form even if Chan's fight scenes fall short of his former glories (that said, there is a good bus sequence and an imaginative chase down the side of a building).

Very good dark Jackie movie. Seriously, he is in a dark movie!

Wow did this one catch me by surprise. I thought for sure I was getting another goofy Jackie movie. NOT EVEN CLOSE!

The movie starts out with Jackie as a drunken cop. After showing him in some disgusting drunken moments, we get to see why he became like this. There is a group of kids going around terrorizing the police. They will do a standard bank job or something like that and then wait for the cops. Having serious firepower, skills that will relate to the x games later in the movie, and already being rich, the cops certainly have theri hands full.So the cops have serious problems and they finally get Jackie in a deadly game of 'can you do this to keep your fellow officers alive'? Needless to say he doesn't and becomes a drunk.

When the band of x-games teens are causing trouble again a young cop tries to get Jackie to help out. I know you have probably heard this type fo a cop story before but this movie is seriously one of the best looking movies I have seen in a while. All of the locations and buidings they are in are great to look at. If you have seen Jackie Chan's Who am I?, Rumble in the Bronx, or even the well done First Strike, then get ready for a change. New Police Story has very high production values and it is not cheesy. Might not be what you are used to in a Jackie movie, but it was a very nice change to see this.

The movie gets between a 3.5 and a 4 but could have gotten a 5. Rongguang Yu(the Iron Monkey) is in this movie and him and Jackie do not fight. That dissapointed me just a bit, but they still had some really good scenes together.

The special features are pretty good with behind the scenes, behind the dubbing of Jackie doing his voiceover and a commentary for 2 scenes. Also the picture is widscreened but the picture quality needs to be commented on. It seemed like I was watching a high definition TV. Very nice!

depressing

Firstly, I'm a huge fan of Jackie Chan and his work, but I just can't give this movie a good review. It is one of the most depressing films I've seen. Basic plot synopsis; Jackie has to watch all of his team members be executed, he is given an opportunity to save each one and fails each time. So thats the first 20 or 30 minutes of the film and all his closest friends are dead. The next portion of the film deals with him trying to drink himself to death. Then we watch his relationship with his fiance fall apart. Then we get to see one of the gang members being abused by his father. and thats at least two thirds of the film.

And then there's the whole subplot about the gang members making a video game out of all the people they kill so the good guys have to play the game in order to figure out what bank they're going to rob next. Kind of cheesy.

As I said, I really like Jackie Chan and he does display some really good acting talent in this film. But I don't like waiting until the last 20 minutes of the movie to see some good action and fight scenes especially when I just had to sit through some of the most depressing stuff I've ever seen.