"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Police Story 2

tn_policestory2POLICE STORY PART II (as the opening credits call it) begins with a montage of all the highlights of part 1, set to the theme song, sung by star/director Jackie Chan.

The sequel directly follows part 1. Chan’s character Chan Ka-Kui, in the great tradition of movie hero cops, is demoted to traffic patrol for being so awesome and busting the drug lord. His boss and uncle return, and although they develop a stronger friendship over the movie it starts out with him being chewed out for all the property damage his famous part 1 stunts caused, including driving over the shantytown and sliding down the weird Christmas tree looking thing in the shopping mall: “Why didn’t you use the stairs? Did you have to destroy the chandelier?”

Even without the secretary from part 1 around to cause misunderstandings, Ka-Kui’s girlfriend (Maggie Cheung) is always getting mad at him because he works too much and his job is dangerous and all that shit. She still rides the scooter, and there’s a callback (with flashback) to the part where he grabbed her bag and accidentally pulled her off. This time he doesn’t do it but she crashes into a car.

Things get even worse because of a terminal disease. No, Ka-Kui doesn’t get one – the drug lord does, so he gets out of the joint on a compassionate discharge, and he and his right hand man start stalking Ka-Kui and his girl, showing up at their homes, spying on them, etc. There’s a running joke that the one guy keeps getting his glasses broken. If I were him I would get contacts.

mp_policestory2These guys are jerks, so they beat up his girlfriend, even though she’s a girl and not Michelle Yeoh or Cynthia Rothrock. The conflict escalates. To me the highlight of the movie is when he sees the druglord in the window of a restaurant in the distance, and has to run across a freeway into the establishment to beat everybody up.

After that he tries to quit the force, but this isn’t EX-POLICE STORY, so he gets drawn back in due to a series of bombings that have been going on. He’s introduced to the squad of special agents, young people with different types of hip, suave or nerdy fashion, no uniforms. They almost seem like 21 Jump Street except instead of going undercover in schools they go overboard in interrogation rooms, beating up suspects and threatening them and stuff.

Ka-Kui starts doing a little more special ops type police work, like sneaking into a corporate board room to plant a bug. To go undercover to meet with an explosives dealer he wears a mustache and wire rimmed glasses, he looks like he could be one of the background employees at Blue Moon Detective Agency on Moonlighting. He gets into character and is meaner and tougher than regular Ka-Kui. The guy reports him to 21 Jump Street (who don’t know he’s there in disguise), he gets out of it and busts into the guy’s house to beat him up as punishment.

The bombers are a circle of interesting creeps. One of them puts bombs on radio controlled cars. I wonder if that inspired the toy car bombs in THE DEAD POOL, but if so it’s okay because they don’t take it as far in this one.

It’s a solid movie with plenty of Jackie moments. There’s the “10 Man Park Brawl” (according to a newspaper headline) which has him doing his trademark complex fight choreography on various playground equipment, tossing people through monkeybars, against the side of the swing set and that kind of stuff. There’s a part where he gets onto the top of a bus and his to leap over or duck under some signs. He leads a car down a dead end alley, jumps up the wall to avoid getting hit, lands on the hood and then kicks through the windshield. He gets to be set on fire and run away from an exploding fireworks factory.

I think there’s less of the out-of-place groaner humor, except for a scene about Ka-Kui’s uncle farting on a crowded elevator. There’s also a part with uncle on a toilet, but that part was pretty funny I thought.

I guess it’s a bigger budget than the first one, so they have more of the explosion stuff. There’s a big scene at a mall with some pyrotechnics that I guess were a big deal at the time, and it’s cool, but is it as when he jumped down that chandelier thing? Not at all. That’s Part 2’s weakness – it spends alot of time connecting to the flimsy plot of the first one but, at least speaking for myself, that’s not really what I care about. It can bring back the story of his girlfriend’s moped but it isn’t really able to top the insane stunts that made that movie unforgettable.

In ’85 Jackie was hungry to do a movie his way because he was so disappointed in his experience making THE PROTECTOR in the US. 3 years later, after the success of part 1 (plus ARMOUR OF GOD, PROJECT A 2 and DRAGONS FOREVER), there wasn’t as much urgency to go for broke, I bet.

Then again, you watch this trailer here and you can see there’s more great shit than in your average movie, or even some of your above average movies. And there’s alot of blood in the outtakes. I can’t dismiss that. They may not have destroyed a shantytown, but they’re still risking themselves on this one. Thank you, Jackie Chan Stunt Team. I appreciate your sacrifice.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012 at 10:34 am and is filed under Action, Martial Arts, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

67 Responses to “Police Story 2”

  1. I’ve only seen the first one. The one that came out in the states as SUPERCOP and NEW POLICE STORY so I need to look into this one cause it sounds pretty glorious. I need to get deeper into the Jackie Chan filmography anyway; I’ve been slacking for years now.

  2. This is probably the weakest of the 4. When it comes to the stunts the original and part 3 can’t be beat. New Police Story is the most competently made with the best acting by Chan. 2 felt a little blah compared to the first and I think Jackie realized that and went all out in part 3.

  3. I’ve always been a tad more fan of the serious, or semi-serious, Chan, the one that gets bruised and bleeds a little bit. And best of all are the ones directed by Sammo Hung (in my opinion Dragons Forever is Chan’s best movie to date). To bad he didn’t get to direct any of the Police Story movies. Broddie, I really recommend #2, but you can skip #4. It’s fun, but since it’s directed by Stanley Fong it’s a bit too similar to Mr Magoo for it’s own good.

  4. pegsman – I just looked it up and #4 was released her as JACKIE CHAN’S FIRST STRIKE which I saw. It really wasn’t all that but a more admirable Bond-ian approach for Chan than THE TUXEDO was.

    I like the goofier Jackie Chan from WHEELS ON MEALS and the DRUNKEN MASTER movies myself but #3 (a.k.a. SUPERCOP) definitely had some rock solid set pieces all throughout. That’s one of the Jackie Chan’s best. It’s a good example of the more serious Chan.

    I think Chitown is right about #3 being where Chan really pushed himself in terms of stunts. If you thought the first had bad ass setpieces wait till you see 3. Hmmmm I guess I pretty much have seen this series well except this one. The completionist in me has to track down POLICE STORY 2 now.

  5. Chitown, part 4 is Police Story – First Strike, and New Police Story is part 5, making part 4 the weakest (if you’re not a huge fan of slapstick).

  6. Broddie, If you haven’t seen Dragons Forever, you must get hold of it. It has a certificate 18 and has some of the best fight scenes Chan has ever done.

  7. pegsman – Yeah I’ve seen that one. Another cool light hearted joint starring Jackie. That’s more my flavor. I was always more of a Sammo Hung fan than a Jackie fan so I always followed his work much closer. I’ve seen pretty much almost every thing the man has done even MARTIAL LAW.

  8. Ah, Pedicab Driver, what a movie!

  9. EASTERN CONDORS anyone?

  10. I really enjoyed this movie when I saw it, but it did strike me as odd that they went through all of that trouble to bring back the villains from the first movie, and then halfway through the sequel they switch bad guys. I kept on waiting for the bomber to somehow be related to the villains from part 1, but they have almost no relation. Also, what was the deal with the villain who sort of clucked like a chicken? I never understood what was going on there.

  11. This is prime golden age Jackie, for sure. I haven’t seen this for a few years but the first two POLICE STORY films were ones I’d watch over and over back in the day.

    Part 3 is great fun and, as you guys say, the stunts are on another level in places, but for me the first two are the better movies.

    Not a fan of part 4 at all, although 5 is OK.

    His work with Sammo Hung (plus the eternally underrated Yuen Biao) is stellar stuff, too. In fact, both their 80s/early 90s back catalogues are incredible – especially Sammo’s.

    Shoot, I hear you. EASTERN CONDORS is truly a masterpiece of HK action cinema. Guys, if you’ve not seen it yet, get on it.

  12. I loved the Hong Kong Legends label that released a lot of Sammos and Jackies movies in great widescreen transfers with new translations as well to give the movies the releases they deserved. HKL: R.I.P you badass motherfuckers!

  13. @Pegsman- Having seen the American release of First Strike years ago, I never realized it was Part 4 to the Police Story series. I’m kind of glad I didn’t know that because I may have never given New Police Story a chance after that movie. First Stike had some decent stunts, mainly the ladder fight, but the tone of the movie was too goofy for my taste. The underwater fight was especially stupid and reminded me of the underwater fight in Top Secret by the ZAZ team. I can’t believe they went in that direction after the hardcore action of part 3. I am not a huge Jackie Chan fan mainly because I just enjoy a more brutal Bruce Lee type of martial arts movie. I’m always amazed at some of Jackie’s moves, but feel underwhelmed by the actual movies. In the same way I love to watch Tony Jaa but end up skipping through half the movie to get to the excellent fights. I’m a fan of the Police Story series mainly because it seems like the only time he successfully blended the more brutal action(for Jackie Chan that is) with his brand of acrobatics,martial arts, and humor. Now that I know First Strike was a Police Story movie I definitely feel like it’s the worst one with the original and part 3 in a tie for best followed by New Police story and part 2.

  14. This is one of the few Jackie Chan HK films I have not seen, in part because I always heard it did not compare to the first film. However, ok Jackie Chan is still better than most.

    ShootMcKay & Karlos, EASTERN CONDORS is awesome! Sammo is great in it as usual, and Biao Yuen steals the show. I seriously don’t understand why Yuen is not considered a bigger martial art Star. Actually most of the classic HK films like POLICE STORY & EASTERN CONDORS have been released on Blu Ray overseas but they play on our Blu Ray players here in the states. Some of them even have some great special features. On the CONDORS Blu they have 3 different trailers, and one of the trailers has all this footage of the gang in prison and it all looks very slapstick but none of that footage is in the film. There is even a part in the trailer where Sammo is trying to dunk a basketball, it is all very silly and completely betrays the brutal and dark tone of the film. CONDORS still has a little of the broad humor you expect from a HK film, but for the most part it is has a very serious and grim tone. However, as dark as CONDORS is I laugh out loud at the stuttering guy every time I watch the film.

  15. Rehydrated Dehydrated Pirate Paul

    May 2nd, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    I’m gonna get some flak for saying this, but this might be my favorite JC movie of all the ones I’ve seen. I know that everyone loves “Armour of God” and “Drunken Master”, but for me… the “Police Story” movies are just more entertaining, and “Police Story 2” is my favorite of these movies. I love pretty much everything about it – the multitude of villains, Jackie’s weird slapstick relationship with his girlfriend, the other police officers. It’s all very cheesy but it gets the tone absolutely right – and then, towards the end, shit suddenly gets serious and the movie kicks into high gear.

    Oh, and I absolutely love the villain switcheroo. I can’t remember another straight kung-fu movie where the central conflict of the movie turns out to be a massive red-herring like this one does, but it works perfectly for me. I love that moment when the villains finally reveal themselves, and everybody in the movie is like “Wait, who the fuck are those guys?” Most movies brag about their villain so much that it’s often a disappointment when he doesn’t live up to the hype; it’s much rarer that a film does the opposite, when the audience are the only ones privy to how great the villains really are. (Also worthy of note here: “The Dark Knight”‘s first half, where pretty much everybody bar Alfred the butler regards the Joker as a “nobody”.) Not that I’m saying the mad bombers are anything close to being as great as Ledger’s Joker, but then they don’t need to be… I like that we don’t see that much of them, it means they have more of an impact when we DO see them.

  16. Man, I really like that poster in the review.

    I agree that good-not-great Jackie Chan is still better than just about anything else. Yes, I now fast forward through most of the non-action scenes in this series, but I still love the POLICE STORYs.

    They belong to a genre I call “inspirational asskicking,” the kind of action films that motivate me to do more sit-ups and frog kicks and power leaps and pull-ups and practice more fighting technique and all that stuff that will allow me to become Jackie Chan one day when I grow up.

  17. The HK cut of FIRST STRIKE is about 25 minutes longer including nine minutes they took out of the climactic underwater fight. Why would you remove action from the American cut? I like it. The ladder fight is amazing, there’s some good standard JC chasing/fighting and the underwater fight in its entirety is way underrated.

  18. it’s definitely not in the same league as part 1, but it’s still better than 4 & 5. having a sequence set in a mall only reminds you how great the mall sequence is in the first movie.

    but i do remember the mute bomber guy really creeped me out, more so than any other jackie chan movie villains, the first time i saw it, in the 80s when i was under 16.

    i wonder if it started all those hollywood mad bomber movies in the 90s. the climax-at-an-abandoned-warehouse/factory was already a cliche when this came out, right?

  19. Anyone seen Crime Story from ’93? It’s based on a true story and perhaps the most serious Chan movie to date.

  20. The destruction of the shantytown in the first movie was what inspired a similiar scene in Mickey Bayass’s BAD BOYS 2, wasn’t it? Only in the Bayass’s movie that scene had a very bad evil vibe about it, two wisecracking lose-cannon americans ruining the meager possessions of 3rd world very poor people and treating it all just like another joke.

    And not to mention the strange fact they took merely 5 minutes from Havana to Guantánamo’s US Naval Base.
    Or that Fidel’s Cuba would harbor a drug dealer boss (and let him live like a prince in total rich boy ostentation) and even offer him army protection, instead of, as it would be, Fidel ordering him shot like a dog after a fun session of torture as soon he stepped foot on the island. Ol’ Fidel really hates drug dealers, lots!

    BAD BOYS 2 is all ass! That it stole a scene from a Jackie Chan movie and made a dumb spectacle out of it only makes it worst and more insulting.

  21. How exactly was the original shantytown scene not a dumb spectacle? What was it, a quiet, pensive scene full of nuance and character development? An allegory for the upcoming takeover of Hong Kong by mainland China? It was a car driving down a hill, wrecking shit. Awesome in every way, but dumb spectacle to its core and proud of it.

    If anything, the Bay scene could be taken as an unconscious metaphor for American foreign policy: a couple of rich movie stars in a Hummer crashing through a shantytown, on the flimsiest of pretenses (“This is where the drug dealer cook their dope.”), cracking jokes without the slightest regard for collateral damage, while still convinced of the moral righteousness of their cause. In fact, the whole movie could be read that way: The Boys destroy thousands of lives over the course of the film, but shit only gets real when one of their own is threatened. (9-11, anyone?) None of this was planned, I’m sure, but the movie ends up accidentally capturing the spirit of the Bush years, a very selfish and hateful period of American history.

    That’s why I think BAD BOYS II is far and away Bay’s best: It really shows a piece of his soul. Granted, his soul sucks, but who says auteurs have to be good people? They just have to reveal something about themselves, and with the racist, materialistic, solipsistic, nihilist piece of anti-art that is BAD BOYS II, I believe Bay did. It’s his BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA.

    (Actually, it’s his FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, sans satire. But I just watched ALFREDO GARCIA and I’m hoping someone will take the bait and talk to me about it.)

    And the shantytown scene is a damn good action set-piece, easily Bay’s best (not saying much for some of you, but still), shot completely old school, real vehicles, real shacks, real explosions, all in one take. I totally get why most people aren’t big enough assholes to find Bay’s desecration of cinema (represented in the film by having America’s sweetheart Will Smith root around in the torso of a dead hooker looking for narcotics) funny the way I do, but you have to give him that one. It’s a stolen idea, sure, but he did right by it.

    And Sly stole from POLICE STORY first with the opening scene of TANGO & CASH. It was fair game after that.

  22. Mr M, I love BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA.

    I went on a Peckinpah DVD spree about 3 years ago and went thru his whole catalogue, pretty much and yeah, the guy was fucking fantastic.

    Maybe ‘cos of the bad reviews I’d read over the years (and wow, that film was hated back in the day), I left AG til last, but it blew my mind. I was shellshocked after seeing it.

    How the hell do you sum it up in a sentence? It’s like a crime thriller poured thru a nightmare. Ugly, beautiful, honest, heartfelt, hopeless, hopeful – a complete masterpiece.

    Easily Peckingpah’s best – after that one with the cowboys. With the guy from Airwolf. Whatever it’s called.

    I also love BAD BOYS 2, for what it’s worth, and you’re right, AG and BB2 are oddly similar in that they show just what is going on inside their respective director’s souls.

  23. karlos: I’ve always loved commercial cinema for its ability to more accurately express, warts and all, what’s really going on in a particular time and place than more artistically minded films, which tend to show more of an individual point of view. For instance, I think the evolution of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series says a lot more about the eighties than any of the movies that won Best Picture.

    As for ALFREDO GARCIA, I fucking loved it. I agree with everything you said, and am surprised that hardly any critics at the time noticed that, for all its ugliness, it’s actually quite a lovely and romantic movie, not to mention a funny one. It just really spoke to me. I already shared my thoughts on it over on the Seagalogy: Updated and Expanded Edition board, though, so maybe we could meet up over there so as not to threadjack any further.

  24. This one also has the scene where Jackie’s tortured by that crazy guy throwing firecrackers on him, which the blooper reel shows involved genuine pyros, if I recall correctly.

  25. Rehydrated Dehydrated Pirate Paul

    May 3rd, 2012 at 12:51 pm

    Majestyk – you are the first person who has ever convinced me of any merit within “Bad Boys 2”, something that I thought would never happen. I salute you sir.

  26. Captain Aktion

    May 4th, 2012 at 12:31 am

    If you’re going to review HK cinema Vern, all I have is two words (and one article):

    The Big Heat.

    Watch. Confirm.

  27. – vern

    How come you haven`t reviewed any Ringo Lam movies? He made some pretty good ones, especially the prison flick Prison on Fire with badass extraordinaire Chow Yun Fat, City on Fire which inspired Resevoir Dogs, Full Contact which had one of the finest shootouts of the nineties and Paradise on Fire.. no, wait.. Burning Paradise, which might be the best Kung-Fu-horror-adventure-comedy flick evahr. And then he made a billion movies with Jean Claude Van Damme, that I`ve never seen.

    Anyway, his movies are not as classic action filmatism as Woo´s, but stuff like script, acting, score etc are a lot better imo. Also, Prison on Fire 2 starred Jackie Chan, if I remember correctly, so there is some sort of connection to Police Story 2.

    He never worked with Maggie Cheung though (the amazing and beatiful actress in Police Story 2).

  28. Mr. Majestyk, what is so fascinating about Mickey Bay is that he can turn anything which was already dumb and makes it even moere dumb. And if you think there was any subtext satire in that shantytown devastation in Bad Boys 2, i have a Broklyn Brudge to sell you. It’s Michael Bay, remember, the kind of thoughtless dumbarsery.

  29. karlos, BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA certainly seems to be Peckinpah’s most uncompromising movie. Ot’s as if he made it as an exorcism of all the swallowed pride from all the compromises to apease the studios he had to made up to that point in his career.

  30. Rehydrated Dehydrated Pirate Paul, there is no merit whatsoever in Bad Bays II, not even as entertaiment because it’s the most boring shit i ever seen in all my life, acting and all. unless the movie has the merit to show off what an ugly person that Michael Bay asshole is.

  31. Police Story 2 has the best fight scenes of the Police Story series, imo.

  32. I’m with Mr Majestyk on this. I feared the worst when I finally got around to watching Bad Boys II, but was pleasantly surprised. It really is his best film. By the way, asimov, the way this works is that you tell the rest of us YOUR opinion, you don’t dictate OURS. If you keep this up you’ll turn us all into huge Bay fans just to spite you.

  33. The funniest thing about BAD BOYS 2 is Martin Lawrence slow-mo expression from getting shot in the ass.I may be a simpleton,I may be looked at as a complete retard ,but that was goddamn hilarious in my opinion.

  34. pegsman- by the way. I´m also a fan of CRIME STORY. Seriously good movie and probably jackies finest performance as an actor. Highly recommended, especially to those who likes more seriousness to go with your Chan-movies.

  35. pegsman, turning into a michael bay fan is a fate worst then hell. not advisable.

  36. well, michael bay’s best movie is actually THE ISLAND by a wide margin. and it’s still an horrible retard piece of crap. there’s something to be said that the original movie of which THE ISLAND is an unofficial remake, the zero budget PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR, is a far more intelligent and challenging movie. Wow!

  37. Let´s not soil a POLICE STORY thread with Michael Bay whinings. Can we move on,PLEASE?!

  38. I agree. Let’s at least stick to Jackie’s movies. And since we’re on the “his best…” path, how about Armour of God 2: Operation Condor, that must be his most “American” action movie outside of Hollywood. I never understood why that movie wasn’t a big hit in the USA.

  39. ShootMcKay, there’s no whinnings about mickey bay, it’s all legit complains.

    But i agree that it’s unjust to the great Jackie Chan to spoil and pollute a forum dedicated to one of his movie with talks about the Bayass. Appologies.

  40. I enjoyed OP:CONDOR more than its predecessor to be honest. Been a long time since I saw either of them, but CONDOR seemed more actionpacked.

    I read somewhere in this thread something about Sly ripping off POLICE STORY and the busgag.
    It made me think of RAPID FIRE where Brandon Lee rams a guy through glass with a motorcycle,kind of like Jackie did in the climax of the first movie.

  41. Another Jackie flick that may fly under the radar is MIRACLES a.k.a MR CANTON AND LADY ROSE.
    Maybe a bit sappy for some, but incredible production values for a Hong kong action movie with impressive camerawork. And of course some kickass choreography. Good shit.

  42. One thing that I liked about the Police Story series, even the later ones, was that they switched genres as they went along. The first two were sort of in the mold of the renegade police officer. But the third one added espionage elements and turned into something of a buddy cop movie where Chan played the undisciplined Hong Kong officer and Michelle Yeoh played the uptight mainland police woman. Even the fourth film (which I do remember as being weaker than the others) extended the espionage aspect of part 3 to the point where it almost became a James Bond parody. At the very least, the movies aren’t boring.

  43. The great thing about Jackie’s output is that even the more pedestrian ones, like Thunderbolt and Gorgeous, have at least a couple of good fights in them. And even if he, unlike Woody Allen, is at his best in the more serious stuff, he is also very entertaining in family comedies like Who Am I? and Mr Nice Guy. Hell, I even like Around the World in 80 Days, the Shanghai movies and parts of the Rush Hour franchise.

  44. Rbatty024, and in the fifth he was an alcoholic!

  45. The one movie I still have problem going back to is BATTLE CREEK BRAWL. I thought it was such a huge piece of shit not utilizing Jackies skills in a more proper way. But hey, I may re-watch it again sometime.

  46. The weirdest Jackie Film I’ve seen is GORGEOUS which is basically a romantic comedy which happens to have a few fight scenes in it.

  47. GORGEOUS fail to live up to its name. It´s not gorgeous at all.

  48. Oh, I think Qi Shu was quite gorgeous in that movie. And in The Transporter a few years later. the weirdest Jackie movie must surely be City Hunter. Video game sequences and all.

  49. MIRACLES is my favorite Jackie Chan film. Rope factory fight!

    Pegs man, OPERATION CONDOR didn’t do well because Dimension released it dub and it was a six year old movie when it was released in the US. But America never gave Jackie’s subtitled movies much of a chance anyway.

    WHO AM I is also a favorite of mine. Great action and rooftop fight climax. I liked the mystery plot (some complain it was too simple and silly. Have a litte fun, guys.) and it’s a Hong Kong movie entirely in English (well, except for the African part.)

  50. Ah CITY HUNTER! Great weird fun. In that movie the Street Fighter videogame is more accurately portrayed than in the Van Damme / Raul Julia effort.

  51. I can’t remember the year, or if it was before or after Rumble in the Bronx, but I think it was the MTV award handed over by Tarantino that made Jackie a name in the US. Am I right? Tarantino sort of helped yun-fat Chow to fame too, but then cut him off entirely when Fat Man apparently smacked Quentin’s girlfriend Mira “the female Val Kilmer” Sorvino on the set of The Replacement Killers, after she’d had one of her tantrums. And of course, Chow weren’t excactly doing his career any favours by turning down parts in both The Matrix and Alien: Resurrected.

  52. I think the rooftop fight in Who Am I? is probably the most underrated of all the fight scenes in Jackie Chan’s fightography.

  53. Have any of you seen JACKIE CHAN: MY STUNTS and the behind the scenes footage of WHO AM I? Its pretty funny to watch when Jackie becomes increaslingly frustrated at the actor Jackies fighting because his lack of timing in the choreography?

  54. Yeah, Jackie is disappointed in his fight partners, because of timing and seemingly because they’re not landing their kicks hard enough or close enough to Jackie’s body. The problems didn’t make it to final cut, though, cuz WHO AM I?’s extended fight ending is brilliant.

    That reminds me, I watched RED TROUSERS, a movie I’ve been wanting to see since I saw the awesome preview on, iIrc, the dvd for THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR (fun movie).  

    Great concept — fantasy king fu narrative film periodically interrupted by footage of its own stuntmen behind the scenes and documentary coverage of some alumni of the famously harsh Chinese dance & martial arts training system.  

    But somehow the movie is not very exciting, and the documentary parts don’t resonate after the early parts with Sammo Hung and the great Chia-Liang Liu (Lau Kar Leung).  

  55. Avengers review please.

    Thanks.

  56. Vern doesn’t get paid in accordance with your impatient whims. Settle the fuck down.

    You can get a Whedon fix, with a smidgeon of AVENGERS gibberish, here & hereabouts:

    https://outlawvern.com/2005/10/01/serenity/#comment-2685517

    And allah knows there’s plenty of pertinent Marvel funny pages discussion here throughout the last couple days of comments.

  57. While reading these comments I was reminded of two films I own that I need to re-watch: ‘Eastern Condors’ and ‘Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia’ … and then I looked on my shelf and realised they are missing.

    I’m never lending a DVD to anyone ever again. Fuck.

    And while I’m mourning missing DVDs, where’s my copy of Stuart Gordon’s Edmond? Oh and Season 1 of Samurai Jack.

    Sob sob.

  58. Kthx.

  59. Henry Swanson

    May 6th, 2012 at 3:40 pm

    When I went to sleep last night I couldn’t stop thinking about an imaginary sequel called:

    ‘Bring Me the Head of Armand Assante’.

    It could be a meta-film-sequel. The ‘Being John Malkovich’ of imaginary Sam Peckinpah sequels.

  60. I thought Qu Shi was more annoying than gorgeous in TRANSPORTER.

  61. Agree. I was rooting for Statham to ditch her, preferably in front of a bus.

  62. Henry, I hate lending and borrowing movies, all the way back to the VHS days. I have firends who always want to borrow (and we are all journalists with collections of review copies in the 1000s.) I’ve finally just said no. I have my entire collection accounted for and if I need to see something else, I’ll stream it, rent it or even buy it. Borrowing someone else’s things makes me just as antsy as lending them mine. *

    GORGEOUS is unwatchable. It has some great fights in it but you just can’t get through it. I feel for Jackie’s attempt at a rom com but wanting a thing and doing it have rarely been so distant as they are in GORGEOUS.

  63. I would have agreed with you, Fred, if it hadn’t been for Titanic. Thanks to James Cameron’s inability to recognize romance even if you drowned him in it makes that movie the greatest missed opportunity in movie history. By comparison, Gorgeous is Romeo and Juliet.

  64. Fred, I am totally on board with the lending thing. I have a massive library (as I’m sure many if not most of us do) and I didn’t get it by not being a stingy fuck about it. I’m kind of anal (read: totally anal) about my collection. Every time I buy a new movie, I like to consider that a problem that has now been dealt with for all eternity. I find the perfect spot for it in my precise but idiosyncratic filing system, and that’s that. I no longer have that movie hanging over my head, mocking me. Letting it leave the house then feels like a case that I’d thought solved that has now been reopened. That gap in my collection haunts me until I get it back. You want to be cool about it, when really you just want throttle the motherfucker until he coughs up your shit. Then there’s the point where you have to assume it lost and decide to buy a new one, which is taking money out of my ever-shrinking expansion budget. I’ve borrowed enough stuff in my day that I know how it works: First it sits on top of your TV for a few months, and then you do some tidying one day and it magically integrates itself into your collection. I’ve decided that the fairest way to handle this is to neither a lender nor a borrower be. I don’t ask to borrow anything, and when someone asks me, I say no across the board, that way nobody can complain. Besides, you cheap bastard, I spent my time and effort tracking that movie down for the lowest possible cost, using methods honed over many years of shrewdness and frugality. You can’t stream the fucking thing on Netflix and save me the agita?

    The only possible exception might be for someone whose home I visit on a regular basis, in which case I will simply steal it back when I’ve decided they’ve had it long enough. But there aren’t many of those people, and I’m usually boning them anyway, so saying no at that point isn’t really an option.

  65. Well, shit. I never saw POLICE STORY 2 before.

    I was planning to finally watch THE PROTECTOR, but you see it’s on a disc with 4 movies and the first 2 are POLICE STORY and POLICE STORY 2. So I automatically pressed play on POLICE STORY 1. What a goddamned movie that is! I loved every second of it even the goofy shit in the middle. And the stunts are just fucking incredible.

    Naturally I had to POLICE STORY 2 next and I realized pretty quickly that I had actually not seen it before. Weird. Anyway, it was fine and some great moments but I would rank it pretty low out of the Jackie Chan classics. I’m very surprised about everyone dismissing FIRST STRIKE (aka POLICE STORY 4)…I think that one is great. I would rank it #2 in the series and I would rank this one #4.

    I was making dinner for my daughter when they switched up the villains and I spent the last half of the movie completely fucking confused.

    I’ve lost a fair few DVDs from people borrowing them and I have always returned any that I borrowed. But a few years ago, I guy that I don’t know very well lent me Blu Rays of COMMANDER, PREDATOR and THE WARRIORS. I’m not even sure how or why, he just gave them to me. And then I ran into him once and said “I still have your Blu Rays” and he didn’t know what I was talking about so I just kept them.

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