1993 - SUPERCOP 2, sequel to Supercop with focus on Michelle Yeoh

Sort of a sequel or followup or offshoot or something of Jackie Chan's Supercop which featured Michelle Yeoh as his action partner.  After taking an extended break, Yeoh was restarting her film career and was lucky enough to hook up with Jackie Chan who turned out to be her perfect action partner.  Supercop 2 was clearly an attempt to showcase Yeoh and her action and stunt skills.

Yeoh is a superb action hero in this film, unfortunately it's not much of a film.  Yeoh plays police inspector Jessica Yang whose ex boyfriend has become the leader of a gang of bank robbers in Hong Kong.  I suppose what could have been an interesting plot line about love vs duty is for the most part a fairly pedestrian and uninvolved story line.

 

The chief draw of Supercop 2 are the action sequences as only the Hong Kong stuntmen could do them back in the 1980's and 90's.  Lots of gunfights, car chases and especially martial arts action which in particular shows off Yeoh's skills who was a former dancer now turned stunt woman and Yeoh is a  rather petite woman which is all the more impressive.

Jackie Chan shows up at one point in the film in drag of all things. He's in another broad comedic scene that he likes to include in his films.  In this film it's kind of stupid.  The film is directed by Hong Kong action veteran Stanley Tong who was certainly an experienced hand at making these kind of films.  Again, not much of a film but the real show is watching Michelle Yeoh in her prime as an action hero.  Supercop 2 is on YouTube in a decent English dubbed version if you want to take a look.

 

The film was written by Stanley Tong and Sandy Shaw, the running time is 104 minutes. 

1992 - SUPERCOP aka POLICE STORY 3: SUPERCOP

 Jackie Chan finds his perfect action partner in Michelle Yeoh in the third installment of the Police Story series.  Along for the ride are Chan actors Bill Tung  and in her final appearance in the Police Story series Maggie Cheung as Chan's very stupid girlfriend May.

The plot has something to do with stopping a drug cartel in China and Hong Kong.  But the picture is really about Jackie Chan and his amazing stunt team taking on crazier and crazier stunts as the picture goes along.

The film's climax has Chan dangling from a helicopter and Yeoh on a motorcycle jumping onto the top of a train.  

 

A great action film from Jackie Chan at his peak

Written by Edward Tang, Ma Fibe and Yee Lee Wai.  The running time is 95 minutes.

1995 - RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, Jackie Chan breaks into the American market

This film should probably be called Rumble in Vancouver instead of Rumble in the Bronx since the film was primarily filmed there.  You can see mountains in the background and cars with Canadian license plates.

 This film was a big deal for Jackie Chan.  He had been trying to break into the American film market for a while and this film finally did it for him. However this is not one of his better films.  It can't begin to hit the peaks of Police Story, Wheels on Meals or Project A to name a few.

 

Still the film is very entertaining. Jackie Chan is a superb athlete and the fights and stunts are staged with his usual dynamic action beats.  The film is loaded with nubile women and lots of cheap sentimentality.  The scenes of the little kid in a wheelchair are particularly grating to watch. However all is forgiven when Jackie Chan starts beating the crap out of a particularly nasty bike gang.

 

The film was written by Edward Tang and Fibe Ma who probably spent most of their time figuring out how to incorporate the stunts and fighting into some sort of coherent story. 90 minutes (the US cut).