While Jackie Chan attempted to break into the American market in the early Eighties with appearances in two Cannonball Run films and starring roles in The Big Brawl (aka Battlecreek Brawl) and The Protector, he didn’t catch the attention of mainstream U.S. audiences until a full decade later. In 1995, New Line Cinema released  Rumble in the Bronx in the United States and the film was a surprise hit. Slightly re-edited and dubbed in English (even the English speakers!), this Chan actioner was number one at the box office ($9.85 million) during its opening weekend and went on to gross $32.3 million overall. The success of Rumble led to Dimension Films to release Police Story 3: Supercop in the United States, which was a modest box office success, insuring not only more Jackie Chan films in the United States, but catapulting Michelle Yeoh to international acclaim.

Running a little over an hour-and-a-half in length. Supercop (as it was known in the U.S.) makes for a helluva good time at the movies. Although the DVD I recently watched was the original theatrical cut, you actually don’t miss much at all in the trimmed U.S. cut that makes up the recent Dragon Dynasty edition. Granted, that sounds like heresy coming from a professed HK cinema fan, but from what I understand, most of the cuts come from the film’s first ten minutes, which — I have to say — are pretty boring. I haven’t revisited the Dimension cut, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but really, the only minutes that really count are the last fifteen. The all-out Malaysia car/copter/train assault with Jackie and Michelle is nothing less than breathtaking to watch.

While Jackie’s character may be the “supercop” of the title, Michelle Yeoh ranks as the most impressive female lead in any Jackie Chan film before or since bar none. That’s not to take away from  a returning, cute-as-a-button Maggie Cheung (remember when she was cute rather than classy?), who appears once again in the role of the protagonist’s long-suffering girlfriend. But as adorable as she is, Maggie’s not kicking the crap out of bad guys, falling onto moving cars, or driving a motorcycle onto a moving train, now is she?

For more details on the film, check out Kozo’s review as well as the U.S. trailer embedded below.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 26th, 2010 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Michelle Yeoh, Police Story, Jackie Chan, Hong Kong cinema. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.