New Police Story

Released by: Joy Sales
Released on: 11/26/2004
Director: Benny Chan
Cast: Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse, Charlie Yeung, Charlene Choi, Daniel Wu, Dave Wong, Coco Chiang
Year: 2004
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The Movie:

I don't think many will argue that Jackie Chan's glory days seem to be well behind him at this point in his career. Sure, he could still kick my ass and he could probably kick your ass too, but whereas he used to make killer films like Drunken Master, now he's churning out Disnified Hollywood turds like The Tuxedo. Quite honestly, seeing the 'clown prince of kung fu' playing second fiddle to Jennifer Love Hewitt hurts more than just a little bit, so it was with a little bit of trepedation that I finally got around to checking out 2004's New Police Story.
The film follows a cop named
Inspector Wing (Jackie Chan) who works out of Hong Kong. He's tracking down criminals left right and center until one day an evil ganglord named Joe and his sinister cronies gun down his entire team in cold blood when they try to precent a bank robbery. Wing just barely gets out of the massacre alive, and when he recovers from it all, he turns to the bottle to drown his sorrows rather than deal with it and do something about it.
Eventually, Wing is teamed up with a rookie cop who slowly but surely helps Wing find his own bad self once more, and together they decide to bring Joe and his gang to justice and to get revenge for Wing's late, lamented teammates. Violence ensues.

While it may sound like a sequel to some of his earlier cop films New Police Story is nothing of the sort and is in no way related to some of the similarily named films of the man's past. Also, with Jackie having turned fifty last year, you can't expect the man to be leaping over tall buildings in a single bound anymore, or allowing his body to get as mauled, mangled and beaten as he used to do. With that in mind, and expectations set realistically given where Jackie is in his career and in his life at this point in time, the movie isn't half bad at all.

It's obvious that Chan is trying to play things a little more straight than he has in the past. The over the top comic relief is not as prevelant as in some of his other films and there are some attempts (some succssful, some not so successful) to make certain scenes very dark and serious. With this change of direction we get to see Jackie emote more than usual, and he does do a pretty decent job of it, all things considered. The movie isn't as serious as it appears that the filmmakers were trying to make it be, but it's still a good action film with plenty of shoot outs and, as is the norm with Chan's movies, plenty of solid fight choreography.
While it may not be a return to form in the purest sense of the word and it doesn't peak on the same level as his classics do, New Police Story does provide enough action - Chan style - to make it worth a look for fans of the man's work. It's no Project A, but it's sure a lot better than Around The World In Eighty Days.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer on this DVD is excellent. While there are faint traces of edge enhancement and mpeg compression evident in a few spots, they're few and far between. Colors look nice and natural, skin tones do as well, and there's a very nice, high level of detail present in the background as well as the foreground. Print damage is non-existent and although there is a little bit of grain present in a few scenes, it's never out of hand and never unnatural looking.

There are three audio options on this DVD - the original Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and DTS-ES 6.1 Surround Sound, and a Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound dubbed mix. Optional subtitles are available in English (surprisingly almost completely free of typos) and Chinese that are clean and clear and easy to read. While the DTS track slightly edges out the Dolby Digital mix, both tracks sound great. The film makes very good use of the surround channels, especially during the shoot out scenes, and the subwoofer gets a bit of a work out as well. Dialogue is crisp and clear without any muffling or muddiness to the track, and there's really not much to complain about here other than one or two spots where the action just slightly overshadows the dialogue.

On the first disc, there are no extra features. Thankfully, this being a two disc set and all, the extra disc has quite a few supplements, though the quality of them varies…

First up are a bunch of text based features. It should be noted that although the menus on disc one are all in Chinese, the menus and all of the text supplements on disc two are presented in Chinese and in English as well. At any rate, most of these are pretty mindless promotional bits, but here's what you get: a plot synopsis, biographes for most of the central characters, some production notes, and cast and crew credits.

Next up are two video segments that unfortunately are in Cantonese only with no English dubbed tracks or subtitles available. First up is a 'Making Of' segment that runs just over fifteen minutes and features interviews with a few of the cast and crew members. There is also a 'Behind The Scenes' segment that runs almost an hour in length and is more or less just a bunch of footage shot during the making of the film presented here unedited and rather randomly. While it's hard to really know what's going on sometimes without being able to understand the language, some of the stunt work contained is worth watching and quite interesting.

For those who like a little Cantopop with their films, Joy Sales has seen fit to include a Jackie Chan music video that is so fantastically bad that it begs to be seen. Mr. Chan croons away wearing a pair of very bad ass looking mirrored sunglasses, and while I have no idea what the song is about (there are no English subs for the lyrics) I can only imagine that it is of great importance judging by the amount of feeling that Jackie seems to be putting into this track.

Finally, there are three promotional trailers for New Police Story as well as a large selection of still galleries featuring promo materials, behind the scenes photographs, pictures from the film's premiere, and more.

The Final Word:

While New Police Story still can't match the films Chan was making in his glory days, it's sure a whole lot better than most of his recent output. It's got some great stunts, and some solid action scenes and the plot and characters are at least respectable. Joy Sales' DVD release looks and sounds great, and the extras are plentiful (if not exceptionally good).

Note: Despite the fact that the packaging on the DVD states it is coded for Region 3, this is, in fact, a Region 0 release so it is compatible with all DVD players.