Jackie Chan's Police Story plays at the Metrograph in a beautiful 4K restoration

Jackie Chan’s Police Story is playing at the Metrograph in a gorgeous 4K restoration starting Friday. If you’ve never seen it you must go, it is one of Jackie Chan’s best. Its so good it played the New York Film Festival and was part of their 50 film retrospective that lead into the 50th NYFF. Below is a modified version of the piece that I ran when it played that retrospective:

Jackie Chan’s Police Story is the first time that the New York Film Festival looked like it actually would show something that wasn’t an arty farty films (at least to me). Here was a movie that most people I knew would watch. It was a film that had me considering actually trying to get tickets and go to the festival. It didn’t happen (actually my first trip to the festival was not until 1991), but the thought of Jackie Chan, clown prince of Hong Kong cinema, getting attention from the film snobs was somehow thrilling.

It would be a while after the festival before I saw the film, but once I did it was clear why the film was chosen to run, it’s an amazing piece of film making (actually every film in Jackie’s series is amazing). The film is your typical cops and robbers stuff. Its nothing you haven’t seen before, nor isthe plot anything particularly memorable. On the other hand the point of the film and what YOU WILL REMEMBER are the action set pieces, in particular the opening and closing bits. The opening bus chase, with Jackie using and umbrella to hang on to a double decker bus is still one of the best things Jackie has ever put on film. The final fight in a shopping mall is equally something that hangs in my memory these 30 years plus since I saw it.

I love this film. It’s the one I usually put into the hands of anyone who I want to turn on to Jackie Chan. This is the film to see if you want to know what his reputation is all about.

If you’ve never seen the film you should.

If you live in the New York City area you can see it the way it was meant to be seen, on a big screen. It runs starting Friday at The Metrograph in a beautiful restored print. This is the way the film was meant to be seen and quite possibly it looks better than even when it was first released.

Go see the Police Story. I know many of the Unseen Films writers and readers are going to be double downing and going to see the film yet again on the big screen. Come Join us.