Still, many of Chan's biggest hits in China and his native Hong Kong remain sadly underseen by many Americans. His innovative, death-defying stuntwork may have set a high bar for modern action filmmaking, but to many, he's the guy that asked Chris Tucker if he understood the words coming out of his mouth. That is sadly reinforced thanks to the US release of "Police Story: Lockdown," a box office hit in China that is only receiving a VOD and highly limited theatrical release (ex: no New York venues, and only one Los Angeles theater is currently booked). Chan's latest attempt at aging gracefully may impress diehards, but many American audiences won't even know that "Police Story: Lockdown" (originally titled "Police Story 2013") is being released a year and a half after its Christmas 2013 premiere.
To be fair, "Police Story: Lockdown" isn't one of Chan's better recent efforts. Director Ding Sheng had far greater success with Chan in 2010 with "Little Big Soldier," a period war film about an over-the-hill soldier (Chan) who tries to collect a reward after he kidnaps a rival army's general. But "Police Story: Lockdown" does say a lot about how Chan has aged as a star.
In 1985, Chan starred and directed "Police Story," Chan's fifth directorial effort and a big box office hit in China and Hong Kong. In a recent Village Voice interview, Chan told me that it took him a long while to feel comfortable as a director. Chan said that he didn't even feel comfortable by 1989, when he and "Police Story" producers Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho worked on "Miracles," a charming, formally challenging gangster comedy inspired by light-hearted Frank Capra comedies "Lady for a Day" and "Pocketful of Miracles." In other interviews, Chan adds that he wasn't writing scripts in a traditional way. For "Police Story," he and co-writer Edward Tang characteristically structured a screenplay around a list of stunts. But if you watch "Police Story" today, you'll find that it's not just a film-length sizzle reel, but rather a consistently entertaining highlight of Chan's stunning '80s period.
"Police Story" is, realistically, largely enjoyable as a series of brilliant set pieces. But the film's slapstick-y comedic set pieces are almost as charming, particularly the one where Chan juggles several rotary phones with his hands, feet, and neck. The film's plot and characters are however incidental, a fact that was confirmed by the way that only one of the five other films titled "Police Story" are directly connected to the adventures of Kevin Chan (Chan), a hot-headed cop who stubbornly takes down the mob after he's assigned to protect a witness for the prosecution.
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