Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Jackie Chan's First Strike Blu-ray Movie Review

Chan, Jackie Chan

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 5, 2015

The film best known in America as Jackie Chan's First Strike began life as the fourth installment of the Chinese superstar's popular Police Story series (which includes the film known as Supercop). Released in 1996 in Hong Kong as Police Story 4: First Strike, the film set box office records at its original running time of 110 minutes. By the time it reached U.S. shores the following year, however, First Strike had been retitled, dubbed into English and shortened by more than twenty minutes. This so-called "international version" was released to theaters by New Line Cinema, which is now part of Warner, and it is the cut with which general audiences outside China and Japan are familiar. (Hard-core Jackie fans can import a Japanese DVD of the Hong Kong release.) The 84-minute cut is also the version being released by Warner Home Video on Blu-ray.

Still, before anyone storms the gates at Burbank, it's worth pausing to consider that the Blu-ray contains exactly what played in U.S. theaters, which, almost twenty years later, puts to shame most of what now passes for action movies. First Strike (as we'll call it going forward) was an obvious attempt to broaden Chan's audience beyond the core martial arts crowd by extending his balletic genius into riffs on James Bond-style stunts—performed, as always, by the star himself. The shorter cut does sacrifice some of the stunt work, but most of what is lost develops the plot, which doesn't make sense anyway, leaving a breathless succession of chases, explosions, physical combat and gun battles (though Jackie himself never fires a weapon). It's the kind of silly, popcorn fun of which it can truly be said that "nobody does it better" than Jackie Chan. Today, no one seems to be able to do it at all, unless they shroud the scene in darkness, glower perpetually, and shoot in closeup so that you can't see what's really happening. Chan always did action in bright light, in full view, and with the lightness of a born comic.

The Blu-ray of First Strike is worth celebrating for yet another reason, because it is one of the first catalog releases to fully demonstrate WHV's new commitment to quality in its catalog releases. For further discussion, see the "Video" discussion below.

References to James Bond abound in First Strike. Whether staying in a luxury hotel suite, unpacking a suitcase filled with stylish clothing or rifling through a briefcase of advanced weaponry, Chan's superspy is constantly marveling at how his latest adventure rivals that of 007. When, for no particular reason, Agent Jackie ends up in a lengthy chase down a snowy mountain peak involving snowmobiles, snowboards and skiis, then later finds himself in a tank battling hungry sharks—both classic perils from Bond lore—you have to wonder whether Ian Fleming is turning in his grave or laughing from the Great Beyond. (Maybe a little of both.)

As my colleague Jeffrey Kauffman noted in his review of the original Police Story, the name of Chan's character is a matter of both convenience and translation. In Cantonese, he is Chan Ka-Kui. In official English translations, he is Kevin Chan. In most dubs, including First Strike, everyone just calls him Jackie.

Jackie's mission in First Strike is to stop an international arms dealer known as Tsui (Jackson Liu) from stealing and selling a Russian nuke on the black market. Jackie's boss, the serenely jolly Uncle (Bill Tung), who appears in all the Police Story films, loans him out to whatever agency seems best situated to stop Tsui, whether it's the CIA or the Russian FSB (which succeeded the KGB). Jackie starts by following a mystery woman named Natasha (Nonna Grishayeva) to the Ukraine, but then ends up in Brisbane, Australia, where Tsui has a sister named Annie (Annie Wu), who works at a Seaworld-like theme park, performing with live, ferocious sharks. Annie hasn't seen her brother for years, but she complies with his request to hide something important in a safe place. It's the core and guidance system for the stolen weapon, and it's conveniently disguised as an oxygen tank. Now what would be the safest place that a shark trainer might imagine for such an object? Hmm, I wonder.

The evil genius behind the whole affair is a Russian mobster who has a team of giant hitmen working for him, which makes for an interesting matchup with the slim and nimble Jackie, as they demolish his luxury hotel suite in pursuit of their agile prey. Despite the Hong Kong success of First Strike, the reaction in America was mixed, and the most common complaint was that it doesn't have enough of Chan's traditional fight choreography. The film is half over before we get an elaborate sequence involving half a dozen opponents and an aluminum ladder (among other props). But before that, we've had the snowy mountainside escape, a daring jump onto a helicopter, rocket launcher attacks, a dive into freezing waters and a miraculous navigation of a hotel rooftop and balcony. And there's more to come: a battle with multiple foes—on stilts!—and another one underwater, sharks included. Did I forget to mention that the father of Annie and Tsui (Terry Woo) is the crime boss of Brisbane's Chinatown and that his empire becomes the object of a war between the Triads and the local police?

Agent Jackie may not have Bond's skill as a quipster, but his face speaks an international language as old as silent films. It's the expression of an everyman reacting to crazy situations with a look that says, "How did I get myself into this mess?" A huge element of Chan's appeal has always been what PR people like to call "relatability". The feats that Jackie performs with his body may defy belief, but the feelings he conveys through his face and eyes make him just like the rest of us. In this film at least, Jackie is good at escaping danger, but he doesn't go looking for it. It just seems to find him, over and over and over again.

Jackie Chan's First Strike Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jackie Chan's First Strike was one of a group of Chan's films in the Nineties shot by Hong Kong cinematographer Jingle Ma (along with Rumble in the Bronx and The Legend of Drunken Master). For its Blu-ray debut, Warner's MPI has newly transferred the film at 2k from a recently made IP. Of equal importance is the fact that this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is one of the first products of a new regime at Warner Home Video, of which reports have been circulating for months. In a former era, WHV would have placed an 84-minute catalog title on a BD-25 and probably not even have filled the available space. First Strike arrives on a BD-50 with an average bitrate of 32.00 Mbps—a rate that, in my experience, is unprecedented for a WHV catalog title (though it is typical for products of its corporate sibling, the Warner Archive Collection).

As has often been noted, however, bitrate alone does not a good Blu-ray make. Fortunately, the transfer, mastering and compression on First Strike do not disappoint. After some minor shifting in the opening credits (probably a side effect of the optical superimpositions when the film was re-edited), the image settles into sharp and detailed stability, with the exception of an occasional fleeting shot where some minor aliasing can be observed. The whites of the Ukrainain snow scenes are the right degree of bright, providing appropriate contrast with the forest greens and a welcome clarity after Jackie's foggy arrival in the Ukraine. The blues of the Australian coastal waters, as well as those of the ocean theme park, are appropriately appealing, as is the riot of colorful flowers and decorations that seem to be everywhere once the film travels Down Under. The Chinatown crowd that gets caught in a crossfire is an interesting mix of black-and-white (with solid blacks) and bright colors, and the explosions that punctuate the action scenes flare with orange and yellow. First Strike delivers the kind of colorful and aggressive image that one desires from a modern action movie, and the constant activity in the frame never suffers from artifacts or loss of detail because of a starved bitrate.

Jackie Chan's First Strike Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Although I can't be sure about the original Hong Kong version, the U.S. release of first strike featured a 5.1 soundtrack, which has been encoded here in lossless DTS-HD MA. Forget about the dialogue; even for the limited amount that was originally in English, nothing is synchronized. Then again, for some people (and I am one of them), that element adds a certain charm to the film. As for the bullets, bombs, explosions, impacts, grunts, blows, crashes and groans, they register forcefully and with broad dynamic range. The bass extension isn't so low that your windows will vibrate, but it's deep enough to make a point. The sound designers of First Strike set out to deliver an action mix, and they succeeded. The score by J. Peter Robinson (The Bank Job) replaced the original music by Nathan Wang, which is the same strategy that New Line previously employed on Rumble in the Bronx.

Jackie Chan's First Strike Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Except for a trailer (1080p; 1.78:1, enhanced; 1:35), the disc contains no extras. New Line's 1999 DVD was similarly featureless.

Jackie Chan's First Strike Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are those who are waiting for Warner to release the original Hong Kong version of First Strike, but I think that's unlikely. Because that version was never released here, a source of satisfactory quality is unlikely to be available without a substantial investment in restoration. A specialty publisher might undertake such a project someday, but for now Warner has given us a first-rate Blu-ray presentation of the film that played in theaters, and that Blu-ray is highly recommended.