Police Story · reception & legacy

1985 · Jackie Chan

How Police Story has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A smash in Hong Kong — it won Best Film at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards — but barely registered in the West for years; now, after decades of VHS-trader devotion and a Criterion release, it's routinely called one of the greatest action films ever made.

What's debated

The eternal fan debate is whether this or Drunken Master II is peak Jackie Chan — with a side argument over whether any Hollywood action scene has ever topped the mall finale.

Its footprint

The shopping-mall pole slide through exploding lights is a fixture of every 'greatest stunts of all time' list, and so much sugar glass was shattered that the crew jokingly nicknamed the film 'Glass Story.'

Where it stands

A cornerstone of the action canon and a Letterboxd darling — the 'you must see this' entry point for anyone getting into Hong Kong cinema.

★ Did you know? Jackie Chan made Police Story partly out of frustration with his miserable Hollywood experience on The Protector (1985) — he wanted to show how a Jackie Chan cop movie should actually be done, and later called it his favourite of his own action films.

Named by the director

Influences Jackie Chan has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Buster Keaton — Chan has repeatedly named Keaton as his model for doing dangerous physical comedy in-camera, the philosophy behind Police Story's stunt work.
Harold Lloyd — Chan has often cited Lloyd's death-defying silent-era set pieces as the template for his own everyman-in-peril stunt spectacle.