Chan's the Man
By Salim Garami
What's good?
This past Tuesday saw the home video Criterion Collection release of a 4K restoration for Police Story and Police Story 2, two of movies that made a household name out of Hong Kong international superstar Jackie Chan. Chan is ostensibly a man who needs no introduction in the world of action cinema, but put it this way: the bodily injury and risk, the way this man twists and flips his body and face for our entertainment, the rigorous and grueling discipline that he pushes despite looking so rubbery and clownish... it all makes Tom Cruise's high-altitude climbs and dives look like square cowardice.
The Hong-Kong-based actor-director is a more painful descendent of the school of physical comedy that Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton opened up, utilizing his background in the Peking Chinese Opera to make things as small as answering multiple phone calls look like athletic feats...
In order to illustrate his excellence and to celebrate this canonization and recognition through the Blu-Ray set release, I've opted to provide two mini-lists here: his top five fights in this post and his top five solo stunts in a post later tomorrow...