One of Jackie Chan’s longest-running franchises is the with martial arts icons such as Bruce Lee, has ensured Jackie Chan is a legend of both action and comedy in every sense. Some of his most popular movies include the Drunken Master, Project A, and the Shanghai Noon movies, but no other series he’s been a part of has had the kind of decades-long stretch of popularity as the Police Story movies.
Beginning in the ‘80s and moving into the late ‘90s, the early Police Story movies are vintage Jackie Chan. His combination of martial arts, physical comedy, and incredible stunt work represented what is now recognized as the quintessential elements of a Jackie Chan movie. The series even spawned a Michelle Yeoh-led spin-off, while its evolution into the 21st century also showed Chan’s growth as an actor.
Between the Rush Hour movies, the Armour of God films, and everything in between, Jackie Chan's movies rightfully place him among the pantheon of all-time martial arts greats. As a result, the Police Story series remains one of the most standout entries in Chan’s filmography, with multiple entries even having strong claims to be some of the best action movies ever made. Here’s every Police Story movie ranked from worst to best.
7. Supercop 2 (1993)
Michelle Yeoh’s 1992 performance as Jessica Yang in Supercop was so acclaimed that the Hong Kong inspector got her own spin-off, Supercop 2 (with the alternate titles Once A Cop and Project S). For Supercop 2, Yang teams up with her ex-boyfriend Chang (Yu Rongguang) to battle a Hong Kong crime ring. Though future Gunpowder Milkshake star Michelle Yeoh is more game than ever to lead an action movie as her breakout character here, Supercop 2 doesn’t add a lot to her story aside from her romance with Chang. Still, as a basic police action movie, Supercop 2 gets the job done relatively tightly.
Though not as spellbinding as Supercop’s stunts and action scenes, Supercop 2 has plenty of scenes of Yang and Chang battling criminals at a suitably spectacular level. Yang’s one-on-one battle with a Hulk-sized opponent is definitely the highlight of Supercop 2, while the movie ends on a much more somber note than the tone of the original Supercop. As a Michelle Yeoh vehicle in her Hong Kong heyday with added from Iron Monkey’s Yu Rongguang, Supercop 2 is worth a look - although it pales in comparison to the rest of the Police Story franchise.
6. Police Story 2013 (2013)
The latest entry in the Police Story franchise, Police Story 2013 continued the theme of Chan venturing into dramatic roles with dashes of John McClane in Die Hard. Most Jackie Chan heroes are rooted for due to their bad luck, bumbling nature, and talents in kung fu; but For Zhong Wen, empathy for his character is born out of him being a genuinely decent person standing up to cruelty and violence.
For Police Story 2013, Chan also completely changed up his approach to fighting, making Zhong Wen an exponent of Chinese grappling arts like Shaui Jiao and Chin Na. For action fans eager to see Jackie Chan in an MMA-style smackdown, Police Story 2013 grants that wish with Zhong Wen battling one of the hostage-takers in a cage and trading his usual fighting style for restraining maneuvers and throws. Fighting his way through broken fingers and sadistic younger adversaries, the action scenes of Police Story 2013 show that Chan still knows how to keep things fresh after decades in front of the camera. If Donnie Yen makes another MMA-based movie, Police Story 2013 makes another Donnie Yen-Jackie Chan fight a must.
5. New Police Story (2004)
2004’s New Police Story acts as a very literal title, telling a completely new and much darker story. Chan plays Hong Kong cop Chan Kwok-wing, who falls into depression and alcoholism after failing to save a group of his fellow offers from a gang of Hong Kong youths. Eventually, Chan is pulled back into the Hong Kong police force to apprehend the gang and learns the connection their leader Joe Kwan (Daniel Wu), has to the police unit. Eschewing the humor of its three predecessors, New Police Story is therefore far more desperate in its stakes and fight scenes while still packing plenty of the well-known Jackie Chan flair.
While not as heavy on kung fu as the original trilogy, New Police Story’s action highlights are the two fights between Chan and Black Mask 2: City of Masks star Andy On, the second in particular using a Lego display to great effect. Into the Badlands star Daniel Wu also makes a splendid early career impression as the villainous Joe Kwan (New Police Story is just one of many Wu and Chan collaborations.) New Police Story was a change of pace for the franchise and one that helped propel the careers of up-and-comers like Wu and On forward and allowed Chan to show his versatility and contribute another of his numerous pop songs to the franchise’s soundtrack, “September Storm.”
4. Police Story IV: First Strike (1996)
If the 1996 release of Rumble in the Bronx finally opened the doors to Hollywood for Jackie Chan, the Bond-Esque Police Story IV: First Strike made sure they stayed that way. Released in the West as Jackie Chan’s First Strike, Chan returns as the franchise’s protagonist, Hong Kong Inspector Chan Ka-Kui, tasked with an assignment from the CIA to stop the sale of a nuclear warhead by the Russian mafia. The English-dubbed release presented First Strike as more of a standalone entry, being one of many Hong Kong Jackie Chan movies to give the protagonist the name Jackie Chan (with Chan himself also providing the English dub). While perhaps distancing the movie a bit from its franchise as an unnecessary side effect, First Strike was very much an international production as part of Chan’s determination to break into Hollywood. The strategy certainly paid off, with the added bonus of Chan’s name being cemented in Western audiences’ minds by proxy.
Like a Jackie Chan showreel, First Strike is ceaseless in its action, with Chan continuing his inversion of Bruce Lee's movie persona and putting his humorous spin on his efforts to keep warm in the snowy Ukrainian landscape with insufficient clothing and an encounter in a Sydney hotel with two hired assassins. The highlight fight scene sees Chan use an aluminum ladder as a weapon against bo-staff wielding enemies, but a close second follows in his battle with Russian mobsters in the shark tank of a local aquarium. With Chan’s proper Hollywood debut arriving the following year in 1998’s Rush Hour, First Strike solidified him as an action movie presence who could no longer be ignored in the West.
3. Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)
For the third Police Story movie, Chan Ka-Kui teams up with Chinese Interpol officer Jessica Yang (Michelle Yeoh) to bust a Hong Kong drug operation. Supercop was the first Police Story movie to bring in Chan’s affinity for adventure, taking the story from mainland China to Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. While Chan has always avoided playing villains, Supercop made a token effort to make him into slightly more of a tough guy than the rest of the series, as seen when he spars with one of Yang’s officers after actively accepting a fight in the series. Still, Supercop is Jackie Chan at his comedic peak, always finding humor in overwhelming kung fu battles and death-defying stunts like dangling from a helicopter rope ladder while on a collision course with an oncoming train.
Supercop is also the one Police Story movie where the co-lead arguably stole the show, with Chan and Yeoh trying to outdo each other in their stunt and fight scenes. In the end, no one benefitted from that competition more than the audience with Supercop’s incredible action scenes and continued hilarity marking it as one of Chan's best movies to date.
2. Police Story (1985)
Jackie Chan was at the height of his powers in Police Story, both leading and directing the movie with some of the most daring stunt work he’d ever done (up to that point). When Inspector Chan Ka-Kui captures Hong Kong crime boss Chu Tao (Chor Yuen), Chu’s secretary Selina Fong (Brigitte Lin) is his best shot at putting him behind bars. However, in typical Police Story fashion, Chan has to keep her safe from legions of Chu’s pursuing henchmen. The situation also creates some Charlie Chaplin-style comedic misunderstandings between Chan and his girlfriend May (Maggie Cheung) and Selina herself when she learns how Chan persuaded her to testify (Chaplin is one of Chan's big influences).
It's impossible not to marvel at Chan’s sheer courage as a stunt performer in Police Story’s opening shanty town chase as Chan hangs from a speeding bus by an umbrella handle. The mall showdown is also one of Chan’s all-time great fight sequences, with Chan and his opponents shattering through mirrors and glass cases left and right before Chan slides down a pole wrapped in lightbulbs. One of Chan's most life-threatening stunts, this lightbulb pole feat dislocated his pelvis and badly burned his hands, just one of many examples of the kind of pain and injury he’s survived in a nearly five-decade career. Like so much of Jackie Chan’s filmography, Police Story more than earns its place as a worthy martial arts actioner in comtemporary culture.
1. Police Story 2 (1988)
Chan upped the ante with Police Story 2, with the movie tackling bigger action sequences, wilder stunts, and packing a surprising level of emotional pull for a movie that’s as comedic as its predecessor. In Police Story 2, Chan Ka-kui has tried to scale back the more dangerous assignments of his job after the first Police Story. However, after managing to evacuate a mall before a bomb goes off, Chan takes the assignment of finding the gang responsible for it. Police Story 2 is just as funny as the first, but more than any other installment of the series fleshes out May as a caring girlfriend who can’t take watching the man she loves to risk his life anymore.
Police Story 2 pushes everything the original did to the next level, with Chan facing danger at virtually every turn. Police Story 2 has a centralized focus on its martial arts side, putting Chan into more one-on-one fights, most impressively with Benny Lai as the gang’s bomb maker who assaults Chan with blinding and brutal kicks. Chan’s stunt work in Police Story 2 is almost beyond belief in daring feats such as jumping from the top of a moving bus and crashing through a window to letting bang snaps explode on him. The veteran action performer Jackie Chan was not the only Police Story 2 cast member to experience major injuries in the sequel, with Maggie Cheung suffering a head injury after being struck by a beam. As with most Jackie Chan movies, all the pain that went into Police Story 2 is on full display in the end credits blooper reel, and the grit and determination of Jackie Chan and everyone else involved made Police Story 2 the top dog of the Police Story franchise to date.
