This is arguably Jackie Chan’s best action movie, and certainly one of the best action movies of all time. I think what really propels this one among Chan’s other films is its sheer audacity: consider the opening sequence, where Chan drives a car down a hill and through a shanty town, or where he’s on the bus and jams on the brakes, sending the baddies flying through the windows and landing on the pavement (the stuntmen were supposed to land on the hood of the car in front of the bus – whoops). Needless to say, I doubt very many of these performers would work with Chan again (I can’t begin to wonder how many injuries some of them must have suffered).

Police Story came about after the disappointing results of The Protector, which failed to catapult him into American fame (it would take a few years for that to happen), and while it didn’t cement his status in the Western world as a super action hero, it was huge in Asia, launching several sequels and spin-offs. The story is flimsy but fun: Chan plays a police inspector (doesn’t he always?) investigating a crime lord. Part of his assignment includes protecting a secretary and exposing the crime lord’s illegal activities. The story doesn’t really matter much here: we’re here for the action. Like his other films, this one also includes his usual slapstick humour, which I’ve never really cared for, but I suppose it’s his trademark (Crime Story is one rarity that features a very serious Chan and none of the silly humour, but it’s strangely a bit dull).

That being said, the stunts and action sequences really deliver here, culminating in an epic battle in a shopping mall. I think my favourite scenes are the opening ones, including a downhill car chase through a shanty town and a double decker bus chase. While the slapstick comedy sets the film back a bit and could be nipped at the bud, the action more than makes up for everything. Police Story is great ’80s entertainment and classic Chan and right up there with Drunken Master. Check it out!

Yippee ki yay! ‘Tis the season for Die Hard, folks. But what’s ‘better than a dozen Die Hards’? Well, it’s John Woo’s 1992 film Hard Boiled (not a film about eggs), and this is saying a lot because the original Die Hard is one of the greatest action films of all time. Hard Boiled stars Chow Yun-Fat as a hard boiled cop nicknamed Tequila and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Alan, an undercover cop masking as a Triad, and it’s in the same vein as A Better Tomorrow and The Killer, but better. Woo really ups the ante for this – I mean, where else can you watch an epic thirty-minute shootout in a hospital? The choreography in this film is amazing. Apparently Woo really wanted to create his own Dirty Harry with this film, and while it isn’t Dirty Harry, you can see stylistic traces of it, and for me, Hard Boiled is so much more – ruthless, raw, gritty, compelling, and a visual feast of bullets and explosions. Woo’s trademark gun fu choreography is fully realised here – in one of my favourite scenes, Tequila slides down a banister firing two guns and demolishes everything in his path. It’s everything you want your action movie to be.

The plot is also pretty great, and you’re vaulted into action from the get go with an incredible shootout between Tequila and a Triad boss in a teahouse. Alan is an undercover cop who becomes a trusted member of the Triad’s inner circle. Tension ensues when he and Tequila join forces – Tequila is reluctant to take on a partner and he doesn’t really stick to the rules, and Alan is crushed when he has to betray his boss to Johnny Wong (Anthony Wong), the head of the Triads (then a warehouse shootout ensues). Arguably one of the best characters in the film is Mad Dog, a one-eyed ‘silent killer’ who works for Johnny. In short, all this leads to an epic shootout in a hospital where everyone meets their fate and action adrenaline reaches its peak. And in the amazing end sequence, Alan makes it to Antarctica, his life-long goal.

Hard Boiled has it all: epic gunfights, a great storyline, dialogue, and it’s so much fun. I love everything about this movie, and I could probably watch it a dozen times. As I’ve mentioned, Woo really perfects the gun fu technique here; we also see it done well but to a lesser extent in Face/Off and some of his earlier Hong Kong films. There’s just something so much fun about this stylised destruction and destructible environments – maybe it’s a subversion of the mundane and everyday order. I guess everyone loves a bit of chaos.

In an interesting homage (or rip-off?) to Hard Boiled, there’s actually a scene in Live Free or Die Hard (a very good Die Hard sequel) where a character shoots through himself to kill the bad guy – this is clearly taken directly from Hard Boiled. On a final note, Midway Games released a video game sequel called Stranglehold a few years ago, and it’s pretty good (super destructible environments too, which is always fun). The plot is much more surreal than Hard Boiled (the sequel is not Riki-Oh craziness or anything), but it’s definitely worth playing if you can find a copy.

I think Hard Boiled is Woo’s masterpiece and it’s essential action movie watching. While it’s not exactly holiday viewing, it’s still a great action counterpart to Die Hard, if not better. Believe it: the hype is real!

Here are my top ten favourite films of 2016 (I still want to watch Tale of Tales and Raw, but managed to see most of the good ones):

The Witch
Into the Inferno
Hell or High Water
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Everybody Wants Some
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Shallows
I, Daniel Blake
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Finding Dory