New Police Story (2004)

Directed by Benny Chan. Starring Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu, Charlie Yeung, Charlene Choi, Yu Rongguang, Dave Wong, Coco Chiang, Hayama Go, Andy On, Terence Yin. [R]

Police Story series reboot has Jackie playing a different Hong Kong cop, one who becomes a depressed alcoholic after his entire team gets wiped out by a young gang of sadistic ex-gamers(!) led by the son (Wu) of a police chief. After being assigned a new partner (Tse), the inspector regains his lost motivation and confidence, and sets out to bring the criminals down. The slapstick hijinks and tongue-in-cheek self-awareness found in the earlier pictures that filled in the gaps between the over-the-top action scenes are missing; instead, the tone is darker and more serious, which only makes it all seem more run-of-the-mill during moody dialogue scenes and trite emotional beats. The martial arts fights and shootouts are all standard, but the runaway bus centerpiece and vertiginous stunts in the climax should please genre fans. Does contain one laugh-out-loud moment: Jackie and love interest Yeung very nearly manage to outrun a shockwave. The star also sings the theme song, “September Storm” (okay…make that two laugh-out-loud moments).

59/100