Jackie Chan's first collaboration with Stanley Tong, who subsequently directed Chan's Rumble in the Bronx.

Supercop clocks in at a sparing 80 minutes.  It's an ok, at times dull and pseudo-Bond flick about a Hong Kong cop (Chan) sent undercover into a drug ring.  Nothing interesting is done with the plot or any of the characterizations - 1990s stock and store caricatures who would look more at home in early Schwarzenegger - and it delivers several "eh" action sequences - not to say that the action we do see, and Chan's antics within, aren't fun - they are, and he and co-star Michelle Yeoh have a nice buddy chemistry that gives the pic some drive when it comes to the martial arts.  Yeoh, who trained from early childhood as a dancer, learned her kung fu entirely on the sets of this and her other early action films; she has never, in fact, trained in a dojo. (NOW mull over that Crouching Tiger fight.) Wah Yuen is fine if forgettable as Black Panther, the primary Bad, and veteran Chinese actor Tsang Kong is notably good as the uber-villian.

Supercop - Police Story III in the original title - was part of a series of which I gather the installments have nothing to do with each other, save for Chan's character in each.  This was one of the last of Chan's films to be released prior to Rumble in the Bronx, which brought him Tom Cruise-like stardom (Legend of Drunken Master hit theaters in 1994), and it shows - while he was already an established film star, Supercop feels like a B-movie from the first frame to the last.  Not a bad B-movie; not a delicious one.  Just a B flick.

This DVD "ultimate" edition from Dragon Dynasty comes with a second disc that has four ten-to-fifteen minute interviews with Chan, Yeoh, Tong and Ken Lo, one of Chan's training partners at the time, and a stuntman in the film.  All four are watchable, with Yeoh exuding grace about the transition from classical acting to action films and Chan expressing lots of aggravation about the lack of creative control he had inside the Hong Kong film industry.  Presumably he was happier with "Rumble" and later U.S.-manufactured films, though I've neither seen 'em nor researched them; I've always been more of a Jet Li guy.  Tong talks dutifully about what it was like to make an anticipated actioner before CGI and green-screen existed; while we could definitely hunt down a lot of handmade ingenuity from the late 80s and early 90s, not much of it is on display in this one - there's a bit early on where Chan gets stuck inside a human-sized gerbil training wheel, and during the final set piece (which is way too short), he falls off a helicopter onto a train compartment filled with pine-cones.  Chan, as always, did all his own stunts, and Yeoh was game for almost everything - the only place in the film it's not her is a short sequence in which she's jumping a dirtbike off a freeway onto the train, which the stuntwoman broke her leg doing.  It's worth noting how much freedom that Yeoh, already a name but not a worldwide one, was given to do these stunts in 1991.  To imagine her being given the same chances in 2008 is absurd.  Christian Bale never even got to ride the Batcycle.

To be blunt, this flick entertains while Chan and Yeoh play off of each other but otherwise it's a snooze.  The liner notes tell me it's one of his "most beloved films", but if so I don't know why.  It's got no heart.  The sheer innocence of its chop-sockiness is kind of amazing fifteen years later, but that's the only lasting impression it gives.  And "amazing" is a dime a dozen.

Special Features:

• Flying High:  An Exclusive Interview With Star Jackie Chan
• Dancing With Death:  An Interview With Leading Lady Michelle Yeoh
• The Stuntmaster General:  An Exclusive Interview With Director Stanley Tong
• The Fall Guy:  An Exclusive Interview With Co-Star And Jackie Chan Bodyguard And Training Partner Ken Lo
• Commentary By Hong Kong Cinema Expert Bey Logan