Police Story 3: Supercop is a 1992 Hong Kong martial arts comedic action film directed by Stanley Tong and starring Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh.

Sometimes life hits you with an unexpected surprise.

A friend comes over, and you talk about Bruce Lee and Hong Kong martial arts films. Then you’re at the library, trying to pick a movie to watch that night. You can’t find any Bruce Lee. But you stumble on an 8-movie collection of Jackie Chan action films.

“Supercop is pretty good,” my friend says. “I haven’t seen it since I was a kid, though.”

And then you watch Supercop.

And then you’re blown away.

Supercop

While this is the “third” movie in the Police Story series of action films by Jackie Chan, the only thing that’s shared is Jackie Chan as the main character “Kevin,” and his girlfriend, “May,” played by Maggie Cheung.

In Supercop, Jackie Chan, Hong Kong “supercop” well known for his spectacular martial arts skills (if not his intelligence or memorization skills), is recruited by the Chinese Interpol to go undercover. He’s infiltrating top drug kingpin Chaibat’s criminal organization with the hopes of finally stopping Chaibat. Inspector Jessica Yang of Interpol, played by Michelle Yeoh credited as Michelle Khan, is his point-woman in the mission.

But does any of that really matter?

Most of the movie you don’t really know what’s going on. The dub doesn’t help, as the audio isn’t always the same volume or clearness as the rest of the sound. Although it is fun to see Jackie Chan’s and Michelle Yeoh’s lips speak Catonese, and then out comes their own voices in English, as they did the dubs themselves.

Why are they here? What exactly is Jackie Chan’s goal here? Is he trying to kill Chaibat? Arrest him? Catch him in some dirty act? What’s going on at this martial arts Interpol academy? Why does Interpol have a martial arts academy? Why are we breaking Panther out of prison? Who are these guys meeting in this thatched roof house in Malaysia? Why does Chaibat kill all of them? Why is Chaibat breaking his wife out of prison? What’s going on?

It doesn’t really matter.

Because the point of Supercop is some of the craziest stunts and fights you’ll ever see in your whole life.

Michelle Yeoh hangs on the side of a car without wires or scaffolding painted out with green screen (it’s the 90s in Hong Kong, after all). They crash into multiple cars where Yeoh bareeeely moves her legs up in time not to get crushed. They crash into a tree while she hangs on the side. A bus goes by, and she flips herself over the van and onto the roof, the bus inches away from her. She’s doing all of her own stunts, and it’s absolutely incredible.

There are several impressive fight scenes, including a fight up a hill with minecarts that characters jump back and forth between, a multiple-character fight in a bar, that random Malasyian shootout where lots of buildings explode dramatically, and of course the final fight on top of the moving train.

There are several scene where I have no idea how they did that. My personal favorite is Jackie Chan standing with one leg on a low railing at the edge of the train, flailing his arms, before shifting his weight and coming back on the train. There’s another, where Jackie Chan hangs from the bottom of a helicopter ladder as they smash into billboards and buildings, that is incredible and jaw-dropping. And Michelle Yeoh isn’t beat either, with a famous motorcycle jump where she rides from a dirt hill to the top of the moving train before skidding and letting the motorcycle fly off. Yes, that’s really Michelle Yeoh. And it’s insane.

Hong Kong action movies in this time period had little to none of the safety protocols Hollywood has required for years (for good reason of course). But because of that, Hong Kong action films could do this. And it’s incredible.

The movie doesn’t take itself seriously. While we can’t remember the plot, Chans’ Kevin can’t either. When he goes undercover, he doesn’t memorize his script and so has to make things up as he goes along. He’s surprised when Michelle Yeoh appears, even though that was part of the plan. There’s a hilarious scene where Yeoh’s Jessica is told to pretend to throw a grenade, but then does for real, exploding an entire weapon’s cache. Kevin’s girlfriend spots him undercover with Jessica and gets mad, yelling at him and slapping him. So there’s always a bit of tongue-and-cheek, even in the height of the action.

And oh, the heights of that action.

Supercop is well worth the 95 minutes it takes to watch it. You can rent it on YouTube, find it at your library, anything. It’s more than worth it.

And others have found it “worth it” too.

Supercop’s Admirers

Supercop has also been a huge influence on dozens of movies over the years for its outrageous stunts and setups.

Compare Jackie Chan hanging from the bottom of a helicopter with Tom Cruise hanging on a cable from a helicopter in Mission Impossible: Fallout. The scenes feature some of the same framing and same shots, from the same angles. Even Tom Cruise’s motion while he hangs parallels Jackie Chan’s in several parts.

Or what about a board meeting between tons of different heads of criminal organizations? Where one crazy guy, trying to prove himself, smashes a man’s head against a table and kills him with a strangle object (durian fruit… or pencil)? Then, when everyone turns their guns on him, he reveals that he has an explosive vest or suit, either on the girl he’s brought with him or himself? Is it Supercop… or The Dark Knight? It even ends with the “crazy guy” Chaibat saying, “Why so serious?” to the drug distributor as he laughs.

I’m told the movie has also influenced Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the original Predator movie, and more. There’s a hilarious scene in Hot Fuzz, the greatest action comedy movie of all time, where a character reads the box of “Supercop: Meet the cop that can’t be stopped,” while an epic shopping mall chase goes on in front of him.

In Hollywood Reporter director’s roundtable, Quentin Tarantino named the movie one of the best of all time for stunts. Asked what movie he would keep in a time capsule for all future humanity or aliens or whoever to see, he offered the final twenty or so minutes of “Jackie Chan’s Police Story 3.” (He’s joking a little bit, but you can tell he really loves the film. It’s about 9 minutes into that video). He says, “This movie will show you what film can do. What the heights of cinema are. It’s all right there.”

In short, Supercop is the cop that will not be stopped.

Supercop is the third movie in the loosely connected Police Story series. It was directed by Stanley Tong and written by Edward Tang, Ma Fibe, and Yee Lee Wai, along with input from Tong and Jackie Chan. It stars Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, Ken Tsang, and Yuen Wah. It was distributed by Miramix Films in the US, and Media Asia and Golden Harvest internationally.