Film Name: 新警察故事 / New Police Story
Emotions surged within me, flowing silently like a melody trapped without an outlet, yet played with startling clarity. When Jackie cried, I cried too.
The story unfolds in flashbacks: a drunken Jackie, utterly defeated, intertwined with images of street thugs snatching money at the corner. Nicholas Tse’s appearance marks a turning point. He consistently identifies himself as Police Officer 1667. His intervention feels like a casual helping hand—for him, repaying a childhood debt of gratitude; for Jackie, bidding farewell to the past and taking on the unfinished Asian Bank heist case.
From the very start, the film’s atmosphere is tense and heavy. Throughout its duration, a subtle melancholy lingers, tempered by a sense of relief. The good characters find resolution, while the villains meet their end or suffer injury.
The women in Police Story, even the leading lady, serve primarily to advance the plot and emotions incrementally. Yang Cai Ni maintains a serene demeanor from beginning to end. Playing Jackie Chan’s fiancée, her police officer brother dies in that robbery. Jackie can’t face her, even singing a birthday song with sorrowful sadness. Her calmness when Daniel Wu straps a bomb to her, and when Jackie must defuse the timer, she says: “I know asking this might make me sound stupid, but do you love me?”
“I love you in this life and the next.” Women need affirmation—not just actions, but words too. His single sentence left her with no regrets and gave her courage. I think I like Jackie Chan’s feelings for Yang Cai Ni in this film. Restrained and unassuming, yet willing to share life and death with her, anxious about everything concerning her. So even at the very end, when countless police officers kneel down in unison to propose to Yang Cai Ni, her slightly turned face bears large scars—yet it’s connected to happiness.
Even as a man, he has his vulnerabilities. During the opening ambush scene, his brothers met tragic ends one by one, hoisted by ropes, leaving Jackie Chan on the brink of collapse. In that moment of psychological shattering, he was powerless to save them, despite giving his all.
The failure of that mission became Jackie Chan’s shadow. Yang Cai Ni asked him: “Is there a cure for missing someone? What do you think?” Jackie replies, “Yes. Seeing the person you miss.” Yang counters, “What if you can’t see them?” An indescribable sorrow and self-reproach wash over Jackie’s face once more. Perhaps it’s precisely because the film subtly reveals his inner turmoil that it resonates so deeply, making us understand and hope that such vulnerability will fade, allowing him to become the man he should be.
After watching Around the World in 80 Days, revisiting New Police Story no longer feels like viewing a comedy. I recall laughing nonstop during the former, yet the only moment I chuckled in the latter was when Nicholas Tse apprehended two robbers. They asked him, “How do you write the character for ‘regret’?” He retorted, “Look it up in the dictionary once you’re locked up. That’ll make it stick.”
In A Dream of Red Mansions, Daniel Wu was a fresh-faced newcomer; in New Police Story, he displayed far greater maturity—edgy and unapologetic, wiping blood from his mouth with a grin after being beaten. His character lived under his father’s shadow, deeply troubled and mentally unstable. His father, a police officer, showed little concern for his son, resorting instead to beatings and verbal abuse. Similarly, the other young accomplices came from privileged families. What their families failed to provide—emotional warmth and comfort—led them to seek thrills in a dangerous series of bank robberies. Ironically, the fates of these youths unfolded thus: The sole female member, wounded, was kissed by her beloved Daniel Wu before being shot dead. One, seeing his parents, chose to abandon the game and fled down an elevator only to be shot. Another, fighting Jackie Chan, was shot by his own partner and bled out, ultimately abandoning his intent to kill Chan. Daniel Wu raising his gun toward his biological father remains deeply ironic—for the gun held no bullets.
Nicholas Tse’s disappearance, reappearance, the memories he evokes, the coat he always wears, and his ever-present smile. Each plays their part in this imperfect world. And so, the story begins.
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