New York Post Review

Khan can like Chan can in "Supercop"

*** SUPERCOP. Jackie Chan, Michelle Khan. Directed by Stanley Tong. A Chinese language film dubbed in English. Running time: 90 mins.
By Thelma Adams(New York Post)

Just when you thought you couldn't face one more exploding aquarium, helicopter tethered to a moving train or giant fireball scorching the screen, along comes "Supercop." Part Bruce Lee, part Charlie Chaplin, Hong Kong's Jackie Chan returns with his "Rumble in the Bronx" director Stanley Tong. This time he has a secret weapon - former Miss Malaysia Michelle Khan. We wait breathlessly for her next stunt and burst into spontaneous applause after she spins and delivers supple split kicks without a moment's hesitation.
Not since "The Avengers" has there been such a synergistic coupling of male and female crimefighters. Can Khan keep up with the men? Hell. She's light years ahead. Like Diana Rigg, Khan disciplined mind is her most dangerous weapon. And it doesn't hurt that she has thighs of steel.
Khan and Chan join forces on a "stupid and dangerous mission". Chan plays Hong Kong detective Kevin Chan; Khan is mainland China's Director Yang. They go undercover as brother and sister and race from podunk China to Kuala Lumpur to fell Asian drug czar Chaibat(Ken Tsang) and his brother panther(Yuen Wah).
Just when the crime-fighting duo is about to pounce, Chan's girlfriend May(Maggie Chueng) arrives and blows his cover. Asian superstar has played her share of kickboxing superheriones("The Heroic Trio"), but here she fills in as the giggly cutie in distress.
The producers dubbed the Cantonese-language movie in English and for the first five minutes, audiences laugh awkwardly as Hong Kong's finest talk in Dudley Doright tones. Once the action begins, we no longer bother about mouths racing ahead of the words they speak.
Chan's athletic sparring is exhilarating. The actor prides himself on doing his own stunts; he may play a supercop but he's not invincible. We share is pain and laugh along with him at the impossible challenges he sets. He gets clocked and we do time; a rival smacks him in the chest and we can see it hurts. There's not a mean-spirited bone in Chan's body. There might not be an unbroken one either.
By the finale, when Chan dangles from a helicopter on the bottom rung of a rope ladder, we are both in and out of the movie. Fiction has been replaced by the audacious fact of this tiny yellowclad figure scraping his butt ion the minarets of Kuala Lampur. We admire - and are chagrined by - Chan the daredevil. The Hong Kong Houdini is the summer's friskiest action hero. Who cares if the plot's less sturdy than the ropes ladder and not nearly as tight as Khan's kicks?
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