Police Story 1 and 2

 

It’s easy to forget just how long Jackie Chan has been making movies. Like many Asian film stars who make their way to Hollywood careers, Chan already had been a star in his home country for well over a decade and had thirty odd years of film experience before Western audiences were exposed to him. He was already in his forties when he started breaking into the American mainstream, in films like Rumble in the Bronx, Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon, which are likely where most people first saw him. Long before he was dazzling American audiences as he flipped around a room, kicked some bad guys and did something with a chair (there are so many chair scenes in Chan movies), Chan had already honed and perfected his own style of action movie and stunts in Hong Kong, in movies like Project A and Police Story.

 

Made in 1985 and directed by Chan himself, Police Story, like Project A, is a showcase of everything Chan could do as an actor and stuntman. Essentially a series of stunts and scenes stringed together with a crime drama plot, it feels like a culmination of everything Chan wanted to do, from specific stunts to set pieces. It was successful and popular enough to spawn its own series of films. The first two were the only ones to be directed by Chan himself and have largely the same cast, tone and story, so I’ll be doing them together. They’re both good fun (especially the first one), and very, very similar to each other. While I do prefer the two Project A movies, the Police Story series is very likely the more famous and are highly entertaining in their own right and are probably the more famous and popular of his early output.

 

Chan Ka-kui (Jackie Chan) is a hard-working officer in the Hong Kong police department. After single-handedly apprehending notorious gang leader Chu Tu during a botched sting operation, Ka-kui is chosen to be a representative for the police due to his public profile, police skills and commitment to his job. Not having enough evidence to put Chu Tao away for good, the police are forced to release him. The Superintendent want Chu Tu’s girlfriend Salina (Brigitte Lin) to testify in court against him and send Ka-kui to protect her, much to the annoyance of his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung). Chu Tu sends out hitmen to try and kill Salina, putting Ka-kui and May in danger.

 

Things start out in highly impressive fashion with the entire opening sequence – a sting operation that goes awry, leading to a gun fight and a sequence where several cars drive through a shanty town, completely demolishing it (a sequence so impressive that Michael Bay of all people paid homage to it in ‘Bad Boys 2’). Shown from several different angles (including from the stunt cars) it’s the sort of dangerous and realistic stunt that we no longer get these days, where safe, sterile CGI take the thrill and danger out of death-defying action. That sequence is instantly followed by another of Chan’s famed stunts – him hanging on the outside of a speeding bus using an umbrella as it drives through traffic. It’s good stuff and starts things off with a bang.

 

The finale is another highlight, as Chan confronts Chu Tu’s goons in a shopping mall, demolishing a small portion of it in the process. Through a series of fistfights and stunts, Chan and various stuntmen smash through a whole lot of glass panels and displays. It all leads to the film’s climactic stunt (one of Chan’s more recklessly dangerous ones); Chan slides several stories down a pole bare-handed, smashing through hundreds of lights. It’s needlessly dangerous, like most of Chan’s best stunts, but damn if it isn’t a wonder to witness. Between all that is a surprisingly straight and serious cop story peppered with comedy. It’s a fun mix, though largely it acts as an action delivery system. 

The film ends with Chan having what can only be described as a violent emotional breakdown – as Chu Tao is arrested and his lawyer begins to criticise the police, Chan suddenly snaps and violently beats the crap out of both, his face contorted in rage as fellow officers attempt to hold him back. It’s not quite the image or note you’d normally want to end your comedy movie to end on. Of course it’s immediately followed by the sizzle reel of bloopers and stunts gone awry that characterise the credits of Chan’s best films, so you don’t really get to dwell on it too much. Instead you watch in amazement as Chan and his crew get seriously injured pulling off various stunts.

‘More of the same’ seems to be the operative phrase for the first sequel, once again directed by Chan. It’s a bit more restrained compared to the first, particularly with its opening, taking its time before it shows off any big action sequences, but largely this is as straight a sequel that could have been done. It has largely the same cast, a very similar feel and tone. It’s fun as well but there isn’t that much action overall and I’d say that the first film is more fun and exciting overall.

Chan Ka-Kui (Jackie Chan), following the ending of the last film (where he seemed to have a violent mental breakdown) has been reinstated as a police officer, but has been bumped down to traffic patrol as punishment. Still very unsatisfied with the law and concerned about his relationship with his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung), Chan decides to quit the force and go on holiday with her. But the holiday is over before it even begins: a property firm is being extorted by a gang of bombers who are threatening to blow up their various properties if they don’t pay up. The Hong Kong Police convince Ka-kui to return and help them stop the bombers before anybody else gets hurt. Meanwhile, Chu Tu, the crime boss from the first film, has been granted compassionate release from prison due to having a terminal illness – he’s dedicating his remaining time to ruining Ka-kui’s life.

The few action scenes are good stuff, though very similar to the first film and spread out a lot more. The film begins with a montage of the best stunts and moments from the first film (a lot of Chan sequels tend to do this). Chan fights various goons, in restaurants and playgrounds, giving him plenty of things to flip over, around and through, and the villainous bombers are all adept at fighting. The focus on explosions also means a lot more pyrotechnics. One highlight has Chan, on the top of a speeding bus, duck and dive over hanging signs before jumping through a glass panel. That’s probably the highlight of the film. The finale is the only really ‘big’ action scene, a showdown in a warehouse full of explosives where Chan takes on the gang, leading to the entire warehouse exploding. It’s all fun stuff, though it’s fairly similar to the first. If anything the two films feel as though they could have been shot at the same time, even though there were a few years between them. I guess Chan’s directing style at the time was very particular.

If there’s an obvious weak point, it’d be the bigger focus on the Ka-kui/May relationship. For some reason they decided to double down on that stuff and I can’t say that it works. In the first film, May was an underwritten character who existed to cause some drama and occasional comedy. Here the solution to give her a bigger part is to make her suffer more – she’s constantly being humiliated, attacked or kidnapped by people because of Ka-kui, be it Chu Tu’s men or the gang of bombers. While Chan’s dealing with both, he’s also dealing with May wanting to break up with him, with their relationship scenes treated seriously. The big problem is that Chan and Cheung, while having comedic chemistry, don’t actually have any romantic chemistry at all (to be fair it’s arguable as to whether Chan has ever had romantic chemistry with anybody, but that’s not why you watch his films).

Chan is in fine form both comedic and athletically in both films, and Officer Ka-kui is pretty much the same role he’d played a few times before and a few times after. I will say, in these first two films at least, that Ka-kui is a little more unstable and angry compared to other Chan characters, like Dragon Ma from Project A. While he goes through similar plot beats (both ended up going vigilante), Ka-kui gets increasingly frustrated and furious at both the criminals who openly break the law and at the police inspectors and officials who don’t support or back-up the police officers. I guess with Ka-kui Chan tried to show more of a dramatic range than usual, but it’s a bit odd. The rest of the cast in both films are all game for what are largely one-note roles, like the stern police Superintendent who has it out for Ka-kui. In particular, Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung have thankless roles, the former little more than a plot device who needs to be rescued and the latter as Chan’s long-suffering girlfriend, especially in the sequel. I like Maggie Cheung, but a lot of her career involved her playing the whiny girlfriend who complains a lot and gets kidnapped.

 

These first two Police Story films do have something of a problem with tone, particularly the first one. They’re all over the place, switching from light and comedic to dark and serious at the drop of a hat. The opening of the first film is surprisingly serious, with its realistic gun violence (well, for a Jackie Chan comedy/action film), heaps of dead/injured cops, crying children and the focus on a random panicky officer cracking under pressure during the violence. Not long after that you have scenes of light-hearted slapstick or juvenile silliness, like a lame elevator fart joke or a scene where Chan, having stepped in a cowpat, wipes it off his shoe by imitating Michael Jackson’s dance moves. It’s tonal whiplash, especially since the underlying plot is pretty much serious business in both despite the comedy.

 

Speaking of comedy, it’s the usual sort for this era of Jackie Chan movies. There is a lot of athletic slapstick, some occasionally juvenile humour and a lot of farcical comedic misunderstandings. It’s mostly funny stuff, especially if you’re into it, though the darker aspects occasionally poke through and make it weird. Take the scene where Ka-kui is left alone to handle all the phones at the station while simultaneously arranging a date with his girlfriend and trying to eat a bowl of noodles – Chan juggles four separate phones and conversations, tangling the cables as he scoots around the office in a roller chair. It’d be light-hearted stuff if it wasn’t for the fact that two of the calls are for harrowing stuff – one woman is being beaten by her husband and another wants to report a rape. Not exactly the sort of subject matter you’d expect for wacky hijinks, but it’s treated as humour.

 

If you cut out all the comedic interludes and slapstick, the base plot of both films is really tried-and-true crime thriller territory. There are crime lords, corrupt cops, witness protections, wiretapping, blackmail, extortion, attempted assassinations, being framed for murder, bombings of public buildings, heroes becoming fugitives and a desperate and dangerous last-minute dash to get your hands on incriminating evidence/stop the villains – it’s all stuff that works in a serious dramatic film. Whether it works in what are essentially action/comedy movies is up to the viewer I guess (I’d say it mostly works), but it’s hard not to notice how serious the main plots are and how straight they’re handled.

Samurai Commando: Mission 1549

Sometime all it takes is a title or premise to make a film. Samurai Commando: Mission 1549 is a Sci-fi Military Action Time Travel Historical Samurai Drama film. I’ll admit the title alone, in all its silliness, was enough to get me interested, but thankfully I found that the movie was earnest and enjoyable enough to live up to that title. It won’t be for everybody, with its static filmmaking, thinly written characters, oddly straight take on its plot and shoddy CGI effects, but beyond all that it’s a fun little adventure movie.

The Japanese army are performing an experimental test of an electromagnetic shield designed to protect military soldiers and equipment. The test goes awry when everything within the shield radius, including a platoon of armed soldiers led by Colonel Matoba, heavy artillery, tanks and helicopters, are transported hundreds of years into the past to a battlefield in Sengoku period Japan where they’re attacked by Samurai. Where they once stood in the present is a grassy field that, based on soil samples, dates back to the year 1549. Three days later there’s another event returns the field to the past, but brings a wounded Samurai, Shichibei, to the present.

Two year later, temporal black holes have begun appearing across Japan, causing widespread havoc. The military believe that the missing platoon have altered the course of history, which is destroying the present. To stop this they begin Operation Romeo, a rescue mission to retrieve the missing soldiers and hopefully restore the present. They conscript former soldier Kashima into their team due to his past experience working with Matoba, while displaced Samurai Shichibei comes to return home. But on arrival they find that Colonel Matoba and his platoon have taken control, with Matoba taking the place of warlord Oda Nobunaga, using his historical knowledge and future technology to change the past and take over Japan and the world.

It’s a fun little adventure film, though it had an oddly familiar feel to me. The types of characters (particularly the reluctant military hero), the focus on the military personnel and equipment, some of the cast and even the way it was shot reminded me of the Godzilla movies of the 90s (minus the giant lizard monster). With a little research I discovered that it was directed by Maasaki Tezuka, who actually helmed a bunch of Godzilla movies, which explains a lot. The way scenes are shot and framed is very similar to some Godzilla movies. The use of miniatures and often cheesy looking effects also bring to mind the sort of ridiculous space-aged technologies they’d bring out in Godzilla movies. Only here they’re mixed with feudal Japan-styled sets and costumes. It’s a pretty fun mix.

It also feels as though it was adapted from a Michael Crichton novel. To be more specific, at first glance it has a very similar set-up to Timeline, the 1999 Michael Crichton-penned novel/2003 Richard Donner-directed film where historians used an experimental machine and were transported hundreds of years back in time to France during the Hundred Years War where they had to stop history from being changed. While one might naturally assume Samurai Commando is a rip-off, the truth is stranger: apparently Samurai Commando predates Timeline by being based on a manga/film from the seventies (starring Sonny Chiba no less!).

As a mixture of genres, it does pretty well. The time travel stuff is mostly just set-up and to give a ticking clock element to the film (they’ve only got three days to save the present and return home). It doesn’t dwell on it too much and never gets bogged down in it. The military stuff is fun (there are so many Godzilla-esque establishing shots of tanks, APCs and military formations – only with Samurai!). One thing that might be a little odd is the Samurai drama and historical aspects of the film and the characters in general. They’re almost all one-dimensional, though the actors are certainly game (nobody is slumming here) – they just don’t have that much to them. The film clips along at a great pace, but the trade-off is that it doesn’t spend much time developing characters. Not that it really feels like it needs it – this is a fun little movie that does exactly what it sets out to do.

It’s full of anachronisms, which is part of the fun really. Matoba is dressed completely in traditional Japanese garb, but still has his military watch on. Seeing Samurai run around with machine guns or wearing improvised ghillie suits is a lot of fun, as is the mixing of military action with old-school Samurai drama. Even the look and overall feel have their own charm, and the effects, as goofy and dated as they can look (the occasional CGI is pretty bad), add to the overall silliness.

Samurai Commando is probably more grounded than a movie with that title deserves to be. They really didn’t need to put in as much effort as they did, but what they’ve done is pretty good.

R100

I watch a lot of Asian cinema. I’m not entirely sure why, and it’s reaching the level of a compulsion, but something fascinates me about the cinematic output of Asia, from the Chinese chop-socky flicks of the seventies, the ghost/curse-heavy Japanese horror scene of the early 00s, dark and depressing South Korean thrillers, Thailand’s ridiculous and oft-silly action flicks, Hong Kong’s kung-fu movies and Indonesia’s recent breakout of brutal action films. I find it all very interesting, though there are some genres I just never know what to expect from. While I’ve grown very familiar with Japanese horror films, Yakuza flicks, Samurai dramas and live-action Manga adaptations, there is one genre that continues to baffle me: Japanese comedy. I know the comedy genre is a big one, and highly subjective, but I’ve never been able to get a handle on any of the Japanese comedies I’ve seen. They’re all just so…strange? Weird? Absurd? I don’t even know how I’d characterise them.

Thus we get to R100, an exceptionally weird Japanese comedy that starts out as a risqué dramedy before becoming something vastly different. R100 is sort of amazing, especially if you go in with no prior knowledge or expectations (meaning reading the previous sentence effectively spoiled the ufn). Actually, maybe having a pre-conceived notion of what the film will be like might make its surprises even more impactful. It certainly tricks you into thinking you’ve got it figured out before it suddenly switches gears on you. In that way it’s similar to a vastly different Japanese film, Takashi Miike’s psycho-thriller ‘Audition’. That movie lulls you into a false sense of security in its first half, playing out like an ordinary drama before things get dark and twisted. R100 is vaguely like that, in that the first half eases you into a state of comfort where you think you’ve got the movie figured out, and then it does everything possible to go against any logical expectations you might have.

Takafumi is an honest, hard-working furniture salesman who lives an ordinary, drab life devoid of excitement. His wife has been in a coma for several years and he raises his young son in the small apartment where they live. Takafumi decides to try and spice up his life by joining the mysterious and secretive Club Bondage, an eccentric and exclusive S+M club with a peculiar contract: no ‘play’ happens at the club itself, and instead he will have a series of ‘dates’ with a variety of dominatrix at public places where he’ll be humiliated and beaten in various ways. The contract lasts for one year and cannot be cancelled. At first Takafumi enjoys it – the excitement brings some much-needed joy and unpredictability into his life, and helps him get through his otherwise depressing and monotonous day-to-day routine. But soon the S+M play starts to intrude into the rest of his life as the dominatrix begin to target his professional life and his family too. And then things get weird.

R100 is a movie that wilfully defies your expectations by first playing exactly to them. The early dramedy is played as earnestly as possible (with some exceptions). Initially, you really feel bad for Takafumi in his ordinary day-to-day life. Perpetually wearing the same drab suit every time, powerless to save his wife and doing his best to raise his son, you feel sorry for him. And then, when things start to get more dangerous and dark (and silly), you feel for him even more. By the end though, things have moved beyond such matters. R100’s turns are baffling and bizarre, but never boring. Part of the film’s success is that it can change gears so quickly and drastically while remaining very funny and extremely watchable.

The film generally has a dreary, almost colourless filter on almost everything. Rooms rarely vary in colour from any variation of grey, light brown or off-white. This starts to fade a little in the latter part of the movie, but for the most part the film matches the drab, joyless, ordinary life Takafumi lives. There are some visual quirks though, particularly when the dominatrix get involved. Whenever Takafumi is reaching some sort of ecstasy, his face is distorted as his eyes turn black, his cheeks puff up and ephemeral ripples emanate from his head. It’s a peculiar visual image, one that gets repeated throughout and is often used as a comedic punchline. Another great source of humour is the fun poked at the normally uptight, overly polite and professional Japanese people themselves:  whenever he’s being beaten or humiliated in public, everybody around awkwardly averts their eyes and tries to go about their business as though it’s not happening at all.

Initially the film manages the thin line between drama and comedy quite well, especially when letting the comedy gently segue into borderline horror. A sombre walk home down the street after Takafumi visits his comatose wife is sad, until it’s punctuated by a leather-clad woman appearing from out of nowhere to kick the shit out of him. Horror movie sting sounds begin to herald the appearance of dominatrix. It manages to remain funny even when it seems to go unexpectedly dark, before it takes a sharp, off-road turn into weirdness. By the final third the film has evolved (or maybe devolved) into something completely different. It’s impossible to go into without spoiling it, but things get ridiculous. Whether this is good or bad will depend on your own tastes, but I enjoyed it.

More than anything else, R100 caught me by surprise. I was so sure early on that I knew exactly what it was and where it was going, but it purposefully swerved away from all of that. I still have absolutely no handle on Japanese comedy (I might understand even less now) but I had a lot of fun watching R100.