There were action comedies before Jackie Chan, and there were action comedies after Jackie Chan. The ones that come after are better.
Technically, the ones with Chan are the best. He’s the Fred Astaire of his genre, a transformative presence who places the audience in awe of his sheer physicality, grace and harmony with the camera. Naturally, it has inspired many imitators.
Funny enough, Chan started his career pretending to be someone else: Bruce Lee. After the martial artist’s early death in 1973, Hong Kong studios were desperate for a new fist of fury to market. Many rose to the challenge, while just as many were shoved into the Lee mold.
Chan, quick with a punch and a kick, fell into the latter. But his talents lay elsewhere. Raised in the Peking opera tradition under the tutelage of Yu Jim-Yuen, Chan learned to fight, sing and tumble. It’s that last one that made him famous.
Chan starred in a half-dozen kung fu movies over two years — they cranked them out like they were canning tuna — before developing his own style. In 1979, he started directing, leaning into his strengths and developing his signature brand of stunt work. His box office popularity quickly rose: Chan was allowed to play with bigger budgets, and he began to flirt with international fame.
The pieces were falling into place, but it wasn’t until 1983 when everything synthesized in Project A — newly remastered alongside its 1987 sequel in 88 Films’ box set, The Project A Collection.
Chan and co-screenwriter Edward Tang changed the title from its original Pirate Patrol to the innocuous Project A to disrupt the copycat industry, churning out Chan knock-offs. Set in colonial Hong Kong circa 1890, Chan plays Sergeant Lung, a naval officer at odds with the city police over jurisdiction and control. There’s also corruption in the departments, with a high-ranking member of the land police working with the pirates, prompting city police Captain Tzu (Yuen Biao) to team up with Lung to root out the mole.
Biao also trained in Jim-Yuen’s Peking opera with Chan, and their chemistry as performers is hypnotic. Astaire could dance with anybody, but he danced best with Ginger Rogers. Chan could spar with anybody, but he sparred best with Biao and the third partner from their opera days, Sammo Hung, here as an opportunist loyal to no one but himself. The scene in the teahouse where Hung and Chan team up to slap around a couple of lowlifes is poetry. The climactic battle with the three trying to take down the pirate captain (Dick Wei) might be the greatest fight scene in all of cinema.
Project A changed things. Chan’s on-screen fighting is a flurry of fists, tumbling bodies and acrobatic feats. And since action has no language barrier, he and his stunt team became a worldwide phenomenon. Couple that with Chan’s international approach to comedy, blending touches of French farce — characters comically enter and exit rooms trying to avoid detection — with callbacks to Hollywood’s silent clowns. One of the signature set pieces in Project A involves a riff on Harold Lloyd’s clock tower gag in Safety Last, while Part II concludes with a tip of the hat to Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr.
Naturally, the action in a Chan movie garners the lion’s share of attention, but it’s the story that connects the stunts and spars to keep them from feeling gratuitous. That’s most evident in Part II, which compounds the police corruption angle from the first movie and introduces two Chinese revolutionaries (Maggie Cheung and Rosamund Kwan).
It would not be a stretch to compare Project A and Part II to The Godfather and its equally lauded sequel for their artistry and popular appeal. And thanks to 88 Films, both movies pulse again in The Project A Collection, a four-disc Ultra HD/Blu-ray box set complete with hours of extras, a detailed essay booklet and two double-sided posters.
The transfers look spotless, heightening the already spectacular cinematography from Yiu-Tsou Cheung — his ability to capture images in low light is remarkable — and the bonus material provides a detailed account of the production of these two movies and underlines just how much of a watershed moment their release truly was.
ON SCREEN: The Project A Collection is available starting Oct. 15.