Police Story IV: First Strike (1996)

Directed by Stanley Tong. Starring Jackie Chan, Jackson Lou, Annie Wu, Bill Tung, Nonna Grishayeva, Yuriy Grishayeva, John Eaves, Allen Sit. [PG-13]

Fourth entry in the loose-knit Police Story saga finds Chan working with the CIA on a globetrotting mission from Hong Kong to Ukraine and then to Australia, thwarting some nuclear arms smugglers and retrieving a stolen warhead. Highlights include a vertigo-inducing balcony escape, “parking the car” on a getaway boat, and an extended fight sequence using poles and an aluminum ladder (and let’s not forget about a shark that looks so fake it belongs in the Jaws movie that had the revenge in it). Good fun during the action scenes, routine complications and conversations in between (and considering the reason why anyone in their right mind would watch a picture like this, it would have benefited from more of the former). U.S. version is about twenty minutes shorter, has a different music score, and is (of course) poorly dubbed. Also known as Jackie Chan’s First Strike or simply First Strike.

65/100