Police Story, or, Keystone Copaganda

When I saw Supercop when it was released in the US in 1996, I was already madly in love with it before the credits even stopped rolling. It was fun, twisty, unabashedly silly, and started my weird crush on Michelle Yeoh (then credited as Michelle Khan), who was doing some of the most amazing stunts I’d ever seen, and she didn’t even have top billing. I didn’t learn until later that it was actually the third in the Police Story series, which was already well known in Asia and by lovers of Hong Kong action movies. The series has seven entries, including a spinoff Supercop 2 starting Yeoh. The first two movies were made part of The Criterion Collection, and they’re on the streaming service as well as a two-disc set. Watching Police Story for the first time made me appreciate how much of the template was carried on in Supercop. Jackie Chan plays Chan Ka-kui, a — you might have guessed by this point — supercop with the Royal Hong Kong Police. He’s incorruptible and the best at what he…