| First Strike
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After the success of Chan films such as Rumble in the Bronx and Supercop, American moviegoers were presented with Jackie Chan's First Strike, another film in the Police Story continuity. Originally called A Simple Mission for the Hong Kong release, this film raises the bar on Jackie's skills to new limits. In this installment of the Jackie Chan super-detective anthology, Jackie takes on the relatively easy mission of monitoring the girlfriend of an infamous terrorist during her flight overseas. Afterwards, Uncle Bill orders Jackie to take a nice well-deserved vacation, but we soon find out that this is not to be. After taking the flight overseas, Jackie turns the mission over to Interpol, who quickly loses track of the girl as she is swept up by friends of her terrorist boyfriend. Fortunately, our hero notices the girl is getting away, and he notifies Interpol and follows the girl. He loses track of her, but soon finds the terrorist boyfriend as he is on his way to make some sort of deal. Jackie follows his for a long time in the dead of winter with no coat, riding a snowmobile no less. Finally, the terrorist arrives at his destination with Jackie on his tail. Things go terribly wrong, Interpol shows up late (and useless), and the terrorist gets away. Of course, Jackie isn't going to let him leave that easily (even though he is freezing in the cold, which he lets us know by showing us his rock hard nipples...yeah. great). The bad guys chase/fight with Jackie via snow skis, and Jackie decides to hide in a frozen lake for about 10 minutes. This is done FOR REAL, and we can see Jackie freezing his ass off during the credits/outtakes at the end of the movie. Jackie is saved by Russian intelligence, ordered to continue his mission by following the terrorist to Australia, and he's even put up in a nice five-star hotel. But, there's a conspiracy afoot, and not everything is as it seems with the Russian intelligence goons. Jackie realizes this fact after he is attacked by some very large men and slides down the side of the 20-something story hotel. Now, Jackie is on his own, and can't trust anyone. His mission now is to find out who the terrorist really is, why the Russians are involved, and to wear Koala-bear Underoos. First Strike has lots of good comedy and action a la Supercop. The quality of the film seems just a notch better than his previous two or three, but the supporting actors/actresses weren't really up to par. Regardless, the action is fast-paced, the story is cool, and the stunts are once again phenomenal. Jackie wears a yellow jumpsuit through most of the film, so if anyone has seen the pics of Jackie scrawling the side of a building or wielding a 12-foot ladder while wearing a yellow jumpsuit, this is the movie it came from. Jackie's stunt and fight scenes are very well organized. Every actor's choreography is near-perfect, even larger battles such as the funeral scene or the ladder/stick fight. One thing that I noticed when watching this movie was that the cinematography in Jackie's films seems to have stepped up a notch. There's a few scenes in particular that I can remember of close-ups on some characters, or different angles during a fight scene that I haven't seen anyone use before in Jackie's films. For example, during the ladder fight, there's several angles where Jackie is having various objects thrown, pushed, or launched at him where the vantage point stays the same for a good 30 seconds as he's jumping, dodging, and knocking crap out of the way. It's frickin' awesome, or something. In conclusion, this is a decent movie all around, and would be even better if not for the mediocre supporting cast. The visual humor is very good, and the action is very fast and ample, and the plot is definitely there. Anyone who really liked Operation Condor or Supercop will love this flick |
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