PROJECT A (Hong Kong, 1983)
Directed by: Jackie Chan
Starring: Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Dick Wei, Wu Ma, Chin Kar-lok

The first flop of Jackie’s new career had just happened. Dragon Lord, another period martial arts movie, had gone out of control and failed at the box office. People were disappointed and the shine was off Chan’s golden boy status. He needed a hit. He and his screenwriter Edward Tang put their heads together and tried to think of what to do. While Chan sunk into a depression, Tang went to the cinema and watching Raiders of the Lost Ark again and again. Then he came to Jackie with his idea: no more kung fu, instead how about a movie with pirates, and the coast guard, and swashbuckling action, and giant stunts. Inspired by the novelty, Chan went for it and, realizing it was a massive risk, he recruited his two brothers from opera school: big brother Sammo Hung, and little brother Yuen Biao. The result is a movie that crackles like lightning. It may be about forty years old now, but watching it you can feel how new it was in 1983, and how new it still is.

Chan plays Dragon Ma, a freewheeling coast guard officer patrolling the pirate-infested waters of 19th century Hong Kong. Then, the entire Coast Guard finds itself out of work when their entire fleet burns down. Transferred to the police department to assist them in arresting landlubber gangs, Chan and his laidback Coast Guard buddies find themselves butting heads with the uptight, very British police force, led by the commander’s nephew, played by Yuen Biao. In an attempt to get a promotion, Chan teams up with a conman (Sammo Hung) to steal a load of rifles and then take credit for the arrest, but things go wrong and a boatload of colonial officials are kidnapped by pirates, instead.

This is a flick where you can feel the inspiration happening almost in real-time. When they didn’t have enough money for big stunts, they found a bunch of bicycles and staged an alley chase that has become a classic. This movie also marks the first time Chan tried a big, death-defying stunt: a fall from a clock tower that took him three days to muster up the courage to make. Dick Wei is on hand as the pirate king who turns up for the big final battle, leading to a new career for this brawler who would become a favorite Jackie Chan bad guy. But the real beauty onscreen is the chemistry between Jackie and his brothers, Sammo and Yuen.

The three of them have fallen out with each other over the years, patched things up, and fallen out again, but they all grew up with the same master, with the same training, in the same school, at the same time. When they act together onscreen it’s like being privy to a family dinner, and when they fight they fight like true brothers. The way they anticipate each other’s moves and work with each other’s bodies and rhythms is a thing of beauty. Never again would they be this in synch with each other, but PROJECT A captures the blossoming of Jackie Chan into a director who incorporates big stunts into his action choreography, and it also captures the powerful, invisible bond between these three brothers. It’s enough to bring you to tears when you’re not busy picking your jaw up off the floor