Movie Review: Project A (1983) directed by Jackie Chan
In the fading years of the Nineteenth Century, the waters off Hong Kong are infested with pirates. It’s the duty of the Hong Kong Coast Guard to deal with said pirates, and they haven’t been doing a very good job. Sergeant Ma Yue “Dragon” Lung (Jackie Chan), the most competent member of the Coast Guard, would dearly love a victory. Especially as there’s friction between the Coast Guard and the land police, who have had to fund the sea-going disasters at the price of their own salary budget. While many cops and Coast Guard members are individually friends, there’s a strong inter-service rivalry. The tension comes to a head with a restaurant-smashing brawl started by the arrogant Captain Tzu (Biao Yuen), nephew of the police captain.
This disgrace could be wiped out by the Coast Guard’s next mission against the pirates, but all their ships are blown up while still at anchor. It’s almost as if someone told the pirates exactly where and when to strike! The Coast Guard is disbanded, and the troops reassigned to the land police under the direction of Captain Tzu, who tries to give them some disciplined spit and polish, but is an ass about it.
Captain Tzu gets a hot tip that a notorious gangster is holed up in an exclusive club owned by the wealthy shipping magnate Chao, and brings along Sergeant Ma Yue and a couple of other undercover officers to make a quiet arrest. Things quickly go south as the club employees refuse to cooperate, and the higher-ups in the police force seem more interested in not upsetting Mr. Chao than in bringing in the criminal. Dragon turns in his badge in disgust (and Captain Tzu is not pleased either.)
Dragon is contacted by his shady old friend Fei (Sammo Hung), who’s been hired by the pirates to obtain some police rifles. Fei doesn’t care if the pirates get the rifles or are captured by the government, as long as he gets his payday. What follows is a complex series of plans, counter-plans and doublecrosses as Dragon and Fei try to achieve their not-always-congruent goals.
This action comedy is one of my personal favorite Jackie Chan movies, and was successful enough to spawn a sequel Project A 2 and have its title parodied by one of my favorite animated films, Project A-ko. You can see the strong Buster Keaton influence in the physical comedy, particularly a running chase/battle scene on bicycles, followed by a clock tower battle, and then a spectacular falling stunt from the clock tower. (So spectacular that the movie uses two different takes so as not to waste them.)
There’s a bravura scene where Dragon gets to call out the venality of the British consul and not only not get punished, but trusted with the concluding anti-pirate mission, which was probably a favorite of native Hong Kong residents at the time.
I watched the American dub this time, which skips a couple of comedy bits and has ordinary credits, rather than the set with outtakes from the film. This may have caused the verbal humor to suffer a bit; some of the minor characters’ voice acting didn’t quite hit.
Isabella Wong has a pretty thankless role as Winnie, the daughter of the Coast Guard Admiral, who is sweet on Dragon. Her primary function is to be useless during the bicycle chase scenes so Dragon has to rescue her several times.
Jackie Chan plays to his strengths here as a hero who’s more competent than most of the people around him, but still prone to miscalculation, pratfalls and pain. (A nice bit in the first fight scene is Jackie and Biao Yuen breaking off combat with each other to hide and express how much each other’s blows hurt.)
This is a fun film that melds martial arts action and comedy well.
