NEW POLICE STORY

Hong Kong 2004, 123 minutes, Colour.
Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse.
Directed by Benny Chan.

Though he seems ageless, Jackie Chan has been round for a long time. He was born in 1954. Some writers talk about his appearances in the Rush Hour films as well as Shanghai Noon and Knights as if he had never been in Hollywood before these huge box-office successes; but he was in The Big Brawl and the two Cannonball Run films in the early 1980s. There are, in fact, 96 acting credits in his CV.

In recent years, he has been popping back and forth between Los Angeles and Hong Kong. New Police Story is a pop back to Hong Kong and a reprisal of a series that began in 1985 with Police Story and its sequel in 1988.

Chan is a friendly screen presence, even when he has to be a depressed officer in the throes of alcoholic drowning of sorrows after a mission that he predicted would be achieved in three hours goes so badly wrong that he loses all his men. A young stranger persuades him to get going again and confront the gang who so brutally taunted him and destroyed his squad.

We see the massacre and find that the murderous bunch are skilled in computer games and organise their crimes and attacks on the police like the games, getting points for killing police. As Chan moves back into investigation, the gang decides to stage another robbery.

The robberies and the pursuits (in a toy shop, a bus careering through a market, a climax on top of the convention centre) provide plenty of opportunity for spectacular stunt work and fighting choreography.

The plot is melodramatic with romantic touches, especially a feel-good –do-good ending and the fact that the gang is made up of for-kicks criminals who don’t need the money but just the thrill and the personal affirmation. (Some pop psychology here!)

But action buzz is what Jackie Chan provides and an admiration for his nimble acrobatics – here aplenty.