In Police Story (Ging chaat goo si, 1985), actor/producer/writer/director/choreographer Jackie Chan established a new bar for a new genre—the kung fu police comedy—so it is only right that he topped that bar himself with its sequel, Police Story 2 (Ging chaat goo si juk jaap), which picks up right where the first film left off and features a roster of familiar faces. Chan once again plays Chan Ka-Kui, a well-meaning Hong Kong police officer who busted the bad guys at the end of the first movie, but caused a great deal of damage in the process, which is why he has now been demoted by his superior, Supt. Raymond Li (Kwok-Hung Lam), to directed traffic. Ka-Kui seems to have patched things up with his long-suffering girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung), who is quite understanding of his antics—until she isn’t, at which point she loses it and lets him have it. But that isn’t until he leaves her on the tarmac to investigate a series of bombings—but, hey, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

The real inciting incident in Police Story 2 is the return of Mr. Chu (Yuen Chor), the crime lord Ka-Kui sent to prison in the first film. He shows up early on, having been given compassionate release because he is terminally ill and has only three months left to live. He is not so ill, however, that he can’t invest all his remaining time and energy in harassing Ka-Kui and trying to goad him into a fight, primarily through the use of his sniveling righthand man John Ko (Charlie Cho). They finally manage to push Ka-Kui too far at a park by threatening May, which sets off the first of the film’s spectacular fight sequences, this one employing slides, monkey bars, climbing towers, and other playground equipment in all kinds of humorously clever ways.

Disgusted with himself, Ka-Kui quits the police, much to May’s delight, which is why they end up on a plane about to leave for a vacation. But, then Supt. Li and Ka-Kui’s uncle Bill Wong (Bill Tung) convince him to get off and help them investigate a series of bombings that are being used to extort a wealthy businessman, and next thing you know he’s right back in the thick of things—which is, of course, where he belongs. While Police Story climaxed with an over-the-top brawl at a shopping mall, Police Story 2 stages its climactic fisticuffs in a deserted multi-story warehouse, which allows Chan and his talented crew of stunt artists to perform all manner of gymnastic kung fu moves in and around staircases, railings, stacks of barrels, and heavy machinery. It is, not surprisingly, a bravura set-piece of action choreography that is as fast as it is funny, giving us a sense of almost impossible physicality that looks like some mad merging of Fred Astaire and Bruce Lee that feels effortless even though we know better.

Chan the superstar leaves it all on the celluloid when it comes to the action sequences, and the palpability of the physical danger in which he constantly puts himself gives the comedy the kind of delirious edge that Buster Keaton made famous in the silent era. Chan is no egoist, though, and part of the film’s pleasure is the way he makes his character a target for numerous jokes, including an extended gag in which May berates him for leaving her on the plane, following him into a men’s locker room where she is completely nonplussed by all the naked men showering around them (Ka-Kui clearly is, though). Chan has such a genuine, likable screen presence that it still registers as a pleasant surprise when he suddenly starts taking down bad guys; someone this fundamentally nice shouldn’t also be so adept with physical violence (the English language title of his late ’90s films Mr. Nice Guy could be the title for most of his films). And yet he is, and the dexterity of not just Chan’s physicality, but his balancing of comedy and suspense and violence and intrigue is what makes his films so consistently enjoyable.

Copyright © 2019 James Kendrick

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