There’s a long list of things that should make Police Story 3: Supercop unwatchable: the comically bad dubbing, the protagonist’s chauvinism, the slapstick jokes (most keenly, when Jackie Chan rolls out of control in a giant wheel and winds up slung upside down in a tree). Yet the film is totally enthralling. And while its greatness precludes these oddball elements, they are also the unlikely icing on the cake.
The 1992 Hong Kong action comedy is the third installment in the six-part Police Story franchise. It was directed and choreographed by Stanley Tong and stars Jackie Chan in his reprised role as Hong Kong cop Chan Ka-Kui (or “Kevin,” as the North American release would have it). In Supercop, Ka-Kui heads into mainland China for a special mission. His supervisor is Inspector Jessica Yang, played by the formidable Michelle Yeoh. Together, Ka-Kui and Yang infiltrate a drug cartel led by Chaibat (Ken Tsang)—a true villain looking to break his wife out of prison because she alone knows the code to his Swiss bank account.
The film starts and ends strong, with hand-to-hand combat and a closing sequence replete with jaw-dropping stunts. In the middle, a hefty explosions budget is exhausted. In other words, Supercop is pure gold entertainment that does it all. If Yeoh riding a motorcycle up a ramp and jumping it onto a moving train, or Chan dangling over the city—clutching a rope ladder hung out of a helicopter—somehow fail to captivate, the film also features a double whammy training-and-makeover montage, the prolific Bill Tung crossdressing as Chan’s decoy “mother,” an island drug compound complete with helipad, and a man getting his head smashed in with a durian fruit.
Supercop marks a clear moment in Chan’s filmography when the pyrotechnics are in full swing. Still, the pageantry is tempered by stunt work comparable to, and then surpassing, the first two Police Story installments. (Chan sustained the injuries to prove it: he dislocated his cheekbone during filming, a slightly less painful price than he paid in the 1985 Police Story, which left him with a back injury, a dislocated pelvis and second-degree burns). Supercop, though, is arguably the first Chan film that combines action this big league with comedy this airy. It is more unadulterated fun, if less emotionally rousing, than his body of work in the ‘70s. Even the preceding Police Story films were simply action, not comedy, flicks.
Supercop didn’t come out in the U.S. until four years after its Chinese release. That means it barely got to audiences here before that harbinger of terrible things to come, the odd-couple action comedy Rush Hour, co-starring Chris Tucker, hit theatres in 1997. From there, Chan’s work was increasingly watered down by Hollywood. Through the aughts, he produced a slew of unfortunate features like Shanghai Noon and Around the World in 80 Days).
It’s a testament to the unshakable foundations of classic Hong Kong films that the cringe-worthy stuff doesn’t detract at all. The plotlines and the real physicality involved are so genuinely exciting that when a Chinese gangster lackey opens his mouth and out comes the dubbed maniacal laughter of a posh British thespian—well, it’s uniquely great cinema. The soundtrack to the U.S. release of Supercop is also a gem, featuring artists from Tupac to No Doubt, and finally Tom Jones & Ruby singing “Kung Fu Fighting” over the blooper reel.
I first watched Supercop as a young kid, and it stands out to me from the stack of Hong Kong bootleg VHS tapes my mother bought in Chinatown. The film possesses a trifecta of expert choreography, action and pure silliness that I also associate with Jackie Chan features like Who Am I?, Wheels on Meals and Mr. Nice Guy. In the same way that a Marx Brothers comedy holds up through the generations, the things that made me laugh as a nine-year-old—Ka-Kui and Yang’s playful slap-fights or the dopey-ness of the cartel henchmen—make me grin the same as ever.
But the real quality for which my admiration endures is Supercop’s idealistic distinction between good and bad. In any number of Hong Kong martial arts films, there is a moment when the audience is cued into just how bad these bad guys are. This usually involves a whole lot of murder. Supercop is no exception, as we watch two merciless purges internal to the cartel and then a fully-loaded killing spree at a meeting of various criminal groups. These bad guys are preposterously ruthless. Meanwhile, the good guys are distinguished by an omnipresent concern that absolutely no one gets killed. A good guy doesn’t leave a trail of dead innocents or semi-innocents in his wake. Chan Ka-Kui is no Jason Bourne.
Supercop, then, is true escapism. It’s a real action film with real action, lots of jokes and good old fashioned heroes.
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