First Strike (1996)
7/10
Jackie Chan returns in a fun action comedy
14 December 2012
Warning: Spoilers
This, the fourth of the Police Story films, sees Hong Kong police officer Insp. Chan Ka Kui travelling from Hong Kong to The Ukraine to Russia and finally to Australia in pursuit of stolen nuclear material. In the English dubbed version of the film that I saw this character has been renamed Jackie. During the course of the film he will have to fight with heavily armed men in the frozen mountains of The Ukraine, clamber around on the outside of a tall hotel while evading two Russian thugs, fight off a huge gang using a step ladder as a weapon and fight more Russians in an aquarium which also contains a deadly shark! He must also work out who he can trust as not everybody is quite what they seem.

This film doesn't have quite as much action as the other films in the series that I've seen but what there was, was pretty good and it was clear that the budget was much higher as the action was far more explosive; involving the sort of skiing stunts and exploding helicopters one would expect in a Hollywood movie… in fact if it wasn't for the rather obvious dubbing I might have thought it was a Hollywood movie. Jackie Chan does a great job in the lead role; providing the fantastic mix of action and comedy that fans have come to expect. The supporting cast were very much secondary to Jackie Chan but seemed to do a reasonably job; not hearing the actors actual voices does of course make it hard to judge them fairly. The plot may seem like something out of a Bond film but this is no rip off; you'd never see Bond shivering in the cold or wearing 'koala undies'! If you like comedy action this is well worth seeing and as there is little to offend it is probably suitable for younger viewers too.
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