Sightlines · reception
How Police Story was received
1985 · Jackie Chan · Police Story on Sightlines
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 favorite of his own action films.
Named by the director
- 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.