POLICE STORY DVD REVIEW

Title number two from the Weinstein Company's Dragon Dynasty line was the one I really was excited about: POLICE STORY. Jackie Chan's classic action flick is a great movie and one that I've never thought got the DVD treatment it deserved. What it deserves is a two-disc set with tons and tons of extras, but that largely depends on the co-operation of Jackie Chan and Co. and from what I understand he doesn't give much assistance to people trying to preserve his legacy.

That said, the new POLICE STORY disc isn't the triumph I had hoped it would be, and I don't think it's the definitive disc of this movie. It is, however, the best treatment of the film that may be possible right now. Running Man, who posts on this blog quite a bit, has a full, complete, insanely comprehensive look at the disc posted and it's the best comparison of this disc to the other versions of the movie out there. He compares the video quality, the subtitle translation, the extras, everything. So if that's what you want then go read his review. There's side-by-side shot comparisons...everything that I'm too lazy to do.

The most controversial aspect of the disc is the participation of Brett Ratner, the highly successful and widely disliked director of RUSH HOUR and X-MEN 3. Ratner was obviously included as an attempt to help the movie find some mainstream traction, and what I find odd about it is that his name isn't plastered all over the box in the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" manner. It doesn't bother me, but it would seem to make a lot of sense to trumpet his participation if the goal is to use his name as a mark of quality.

There's two places where Ratner participates: he and Bey Logan do an audio commentary and he and Bey Logan present a "Tribute to Jackie Chan". The "Tribute" is pretty worthless. A quick snippet of Bey introducing Ratner and then Ratner talks for a few minutes about how awesome Jackie Chan is. Next. The audio commentary isn't the disaster I expected, either. Bey is his typical self, dropping the factoids, speculating on how things were done, doing his best to put the movie in context. Ratner says a lot, but he's mostly wrong (Brigitte Lin is not Maggie Cheung no matter how hard you wish it was so) but he comes across as a harmless enthusiast rather than as some kind of monster. He obviously loves the movie but he doesn't have a whole lot to add beyond his love.

There are outtakes and deleted scenes that are very nice to have. Two big thumbs up for those.

There's also "Stunts Unlimited: A Retrospective with Members of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team" that is basically interviews with Benny Lai, Mars and Fung Hak-on broken up with clips from the film. It's a great extra and while the editing is a little repetitive (guy speaks, cut to clips, guy speaks, cut to clips, guy speaks, cut to clips) the information is great.

The best extra is a brief conversation with Jackie, himself. 20 years later he has a vivid memory of the production and he's a great storyteller. He's willing to look bad in his stories and to not always be the hero, and even though his English gets downright impenetrable at times he's riveting to watch and listen to.

The overall design of the disc is okay, a little anonymous, but not bad. The video transfer didn't look perfect to me, but I'm not good at this kind of thing. There seemed to be a black mist over a lot of the brighter shots, and while it was very, very faint and is probably just something natural like grain, I did notice it.

Overall, this disc is good, but not great. The Dragon Dynasty line have done a terrific job with the SPL DVD, a good (but not definitive) job with POLICE STORY, so let's see what's next. This disc is far better than it could have been, but we're still not at the Criterion level yet where great design, penetrating extras, and pristine transfers are combined into one awe-inspiring package. So far you get the impression that they're doing the best they have with what they got.