Today I couldn’t tell you whose idea it was to go to Blockbuster and rent a Jackie Chan VHS but I can clearly remember more than one family movie night spent laughing and gasping in shock while watching Operation Condor. Of course, even this innocent memory of a Hong Kong superstar’s attempt at an Indiana Jones movie is somehow wrapped up in Weinstein controversy. For the longest time, pre-internet Kyle did not know that Operation Condor was actually Armour of God 2: Operation Condor and that Operation Condor 2: Armor of God was actually just Armour of God. Just another reason to hate Harvey Weinstein, I suppose. Anyway.

I think I was addicted to Operation Condor for a while because I remember renting it many times on VHS and DVD. I didn’t think of Jackie as a martial artist so much as an uncompromising action movie star that was willing to risk life and limb for a crazy stunt sequence. The notion of a movie star doing his own stunts and showing off the injuries in the credits as proof of his successes and missteps meant something to me, for whatever reason. I thought of him as a living, breathing special effect. In a way, I still do.

I soon branched out beyond Operation Condor but rarely went beyond Jackie Chan in terms of Hong Kong or Chinese film. I didn’t see my first Bruce Lee film until many, many years later, because again, kung fu wasn’t the main draw at the time. Thinking on it now, I miss the happy discoveries browsing the aisles of the video stores looking for a Jackie Chan movie I had never seen before. You don’t get quite the same feeling when such a film appears available for streaming on Netflix or Amazon, you know? After the Operation Condor/Armor of God movies, I have early memories of Jackie Chan’s First Strike, Who Am I?, Mr. Nice Guy, and Rumble in the Bronx.

It probably wasn’t until I first saw Legend of Drunken Master (the Jackie film that I revisit most often) in the early 2000s that I began to appreciate martial arts on film. The fight choreography in that film was so fast and strange, violent yet hilarious. It remains my favorite martial arts movie today. That movie sparked interest in seeking out similar martial arts movies, introducing me to Bruce, Jet, Michelle, and Sammo, among others.

But the thing about Hong Kong cinema that remains the main point of interest to me is the unbelievable stunt work. I recall hearing how the rival stunt teams got competitive trying to show who was more daring and more willing to take the bruises and broken bones for their art. And that really upped the quality of what you saw in the movies, I think. Hollywood produces plenty of good movies but you don’t see that same competition to outdo each other in action set pieces and stunts that inspire a sense of awe. Hollywood wants to outdo each other at the box office, which I get, but it’s not the same (Tom Cruise is the closest modern American cinema has to a Jackie Chan but beyond Cruise you’ll rarely see an A-lister risking their life for an action movie in Hollywood). I mean, Jackie Chan’s Police Story had the lead actor/director drive a car through a shanty town. It’s insane. And then, later on in the same movie, he rides a pole down multiple floors in a mall, with glass and sparks flying all around him. How can you not be impressed by that dedication and daring?

Today’s Jackie Chan movies aren’t the same, understandably. The star has slowed down with age and requires more assistance of special effects like wire work; I do not begrudge him this for a second. His films have also taken on a noticeably more downbeat tone. New Police Story took the crazy action series to dark new lows, with Jackie trading in comedy for a sad, self-pitying dramatic performance—but at least it still had the crazy action and stunts. And then Police Story: Lockdown kept with the dramatic performance but excised most of the stunt work in favor of a gritty thriller atmosphere. I think the change in tone may be most related to Jackie’s return from Hollywood, where he had success but rarely seemed very pleased with the work he was doing. It’s like he took a bad mood into his movies – that, or, he enjoyed the good reviews for 2009’s Shinjuku Incident and has been trying to get back to that sort of dramatic character work ever since.

2017’s The Foreigner, more than any Jackie Chan movie of the past decade, suggests that maybe Jackie (who wants to be a respected dramatic actor) and the fans (who want to see him kick people and cling to the wall like Spider-Man), and the international producers (who want him to speak English) can all be happy. Because though his movies have changed from what I first fell in love with, at least you can say that he still tries to provide variety and will do almost anything to entertain an audience. And wherever Jackie Chan’s career goes from here, the old movies will always be there, awesome and badass and full of life. Hmm, I think I’m gonna go watch Operation Condor now. Later.

Read First Experiences of Asian Cinema: Hong Kong & China Edition Part I

Read First Experiences of Asian Cinema: Hong Kong & China Edition Part III

Read First Experiences of Asian Cinema: Hong Kong & China Edition Part IV