02/30 - Police Story (1985) After the sudden death of Bruce Lee, the Asia film markets were emerged with Bruce Lee imitators to exploit Lee’s international fame. A young stuntman, Jackie Chan, insisted audience would not be interested in another Bruce Lee knockoffs. Chan began to combine Pekin opera’s acrobatic, martial art and slapstick humor in his choreography, as opposed to Lee’s precise, ruthless fighting style. Chan finally got his first breakthrough when he starred in 1978 film, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. The film set an early example of Kung Fu comedy genre where Chan finally stepped out of Lee’s shadow and made a name for himself. The following year, Chan made his directorial debut and continued experimenting large-scale action scenes with elaborate dangerous stunt. In 1985, Chan directed Police Story, a crime action film featured double-decker bus chase, climatic fight in a shopping mall and the famous stunt where Chan slided down a pole covered with dangling electric light. The film won Chan the best film at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards and propelled Chan to international stardom. Despite Chan’s worldwide success, his popularity in Hong Kong has diminished when Chan favored China’s growing market over his home city. Since 2003, Chan often acted as CCP’s progapagand mouthepiece in oppressing free press and human right. “I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not.” Chan said at a conference in 2009. “I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want.” In 2020, Chan voiced his support for the China’s new National Security Law for Hong Kong, which gave the single-party regime new expansive power to repress political opposition, oversee schools, tighten control over media and conduct covet surveillance without juridical control. Anyone failing to comply the new Draconian laws can be imprisoned. While the West praise Chan as a humbled martial artist, millions of Hong Kongers loathe Chan for his flagrant bootlicking to Beijing. As Police Story celebrate its 36th anniversary in 2021, perhaps Chan can make another sequel and call it Police State Story. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQtoOblDDbX/?utm_medium=tumblr