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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	1996
Country of origin:	Hong Kong / Australia / Russia / USA
Director:	Stanley Tong
Genre:	Action comedy
Starring:	Jackie Chan, Jackson Liu, Bill Tung, Annie Wu
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116704/
Tagline:	Jackie Chan fights for America in his biggest action film ever.
Favourite line:	N/A - Subtitled

Also known as Police Story 4, this sees Chan's Supercop on the trail of a missing nuclear warhead, a trail that sees him globe-trotting quite impressively taking in, amongst other places, Australia and The Ukraine.

Not much else to say about the plot as, clearly, in movies such as this, the plot is ultimately playing a massive second fiddle to the action in much the same way as a Bond movie; the plot is merely a device used as an excuse to stage ludicrously over the top action set pieces. It's interesting to note that, when planning the reboot of the Bond franchise with Casino Royale a couple of years ago, the Bond team consulted extensively with those responsible for choreographing the action and fight sequences in Chan's movies. Impressive.
Most impressive.
Chan is his usual, high energy bundle of litheness, springing around the set like a simian half his age, making use of everything in his vicinity to fend off the bad guys including, in one dizzying sequence, a full size stepladder.
The Bond homages are plentiful, the snowbound chase on snowcats through an alpine forest being the one that springs immediately to mind, along with the anthemic, chest thumping incidental music that accompanies it which could have been lifted direct from the Roger Moore era.
Only one small gripe here, which is the principle female lead. In most Jackie Chan movies, the women, whilst poorly scripted, are nonetheless kick ass when it comes to the fighting, more than able to hold their own in the kung fu stakes, and even get to take part in some of the more dangerous stunts. Here, the main female, Annie Tsui, played by Annie Wu, is nothing short of an irritant, constantly weeping and screaming and coming across as a bit of a wet fish, which is a shame.
I am a little puzzled, too, as to the version I watched, which seemed to end bizarrely. I have seen this movie before, though many moons ago, and I seem to recall a rather cool denouement involving a hovercraft, though that was completely absent, the movie ending abruptly after roughly one hour fifteen minutes. Now, I did watch this on Channel 5 (UK) and they can hardly be considered a broadcaster of excellence, though even for them, truncating a movie before the final showdown would be a new low. If anyone can shed any light on this, perhaps reassuring me that I am not entirely deluded, I'd appreciate it.
Certainly not Jackie's best movie, but a diverting enough way to spend an afternoon nonetheless.