Just another normal Friday for Chan.
Crime Story is a 1993 Martial Arts Movie starring Jackie Chan, where once again (after the My Lucky Stars and Police Story series) Chan is playing a super-cop. But this time the movie centered around him is grittier, more serious, and have really minimal comedic moments (irony, since this movie comes out the same year as the silly and over-the-top City Hunter).
Eddie Chan (Jackie Chan) is a cop with emotional issues after killing three robbers in self-defense. Deemed to be fit for duty by his superiors despite his objections, Eddie is assigned on tracking down kidnapped businessman Wong Yat-fei with his immediate partner and superior, Detective Hung Ting-bong (Kent Cheng, or Fatty Lam from the Once Upon a Time in China movies). However, Eddie soon discovers a greater conspiracy is at large.
This film contains examples of:
- Battle Amongst the Flames: The final action set piece between Eddie and several triads led by Detective Hung, in a whole city block that's on fire after a stray bullet hits a fuel line and about to explode in minutes...
- Car Fu: Eddie Chan, during a car chase, drives his car down a steep cliff a few hundred meters to catch up with some mobsters, lands heavily in the middle of the road, and continues driving forward!
- Darker and Edgier: Compared to most of Jackie Chan's films coming out at the time. Heck, check out Chan's earlier "cop" films like My Lucky Stars and Police Story before seeing this one. The contrast is jarring!
- Dirty Cop: Detective Hung Ting-bong, actually a triad informant and one hell of a Fat Bastard.
- Drowning Pit: An action scene before the final act has Eddie trapped in the hull of a ship filling with water after being double-crossed by Inspector Hung.
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Eddie beating the snot out of Detective Hung in the final scene. After all that crap Hung forced Eddie through its so damn entertaining watching Hung on the receiving side for once.
- False Friend: Detective Hung pretends to be pals with Eddie, but is secretly using Eddie to feed information to his triad contacts.
- Fat Slob: Detective Hung have some shades of this, being lazy and irresponsible. Just to give audience another reason to despise him.
- Hate Sink: Detective Hung initially appears to be Eddie's Pointy-Haired Boss, but he's secretly a triad informant and The Mole who abuses his power constantly. His Establishing Character Moment depicts him as a Fat Bastard and pervert who forces his fat, oversized gut onto a bar-girl he hired, sexually humiliates her while forcing her against a corner in an elevator, and slaps her for crying when they get out. He pretends to be on the same side as Eddie, but actually double-crosses everyone (including the Taiwanese triad boss he's supposedly an informer for) if it means things will go in his favour. While Hung and Eddie both gets arrested, Hung uses his triad connections to snake his way out while allowing Eddie to take a beating from the Taiwanese police. When Eddie finds out Hung is a traitor, Hung tries to get Eddie killed by trapping him in the lower hull of a ship filling with water. When all hell breaks loose in the finale, Hung ditches his mooks and tries making a run for it, and further takes advantage of Eddie (when Eddie had to momentarily stop to save a child trapped in the fire) by closing the nearest possible exit after he got through, trying to have Eddie and a child killed in the inferno. Ultimately, his one and only saving grace is that he's at least willing to Face Death with Dignity when pinned under rubble just as the entire block is about to blow up.
- Improvised Weapon: Eddie is played by Jackie Chan. Enough said.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Detective Hung thinks he can get away with all the atrocities he has committed by leaving Eddie to die in a fire, only to at the last minute have the floor beneath him give way and collapse, trapping him in rubble. He eventually ends up dying when the whole place goes Ka-boom, and of course nobody will mourn his demise.
- Man on Fire: One unlucky triad accidentally gets leaking gas sprayed all over himself while standing too near an open fire, just as the entire city block is about to blow.
- Men of Sherwood: The Taiwanese police during the arrest scene in Taipei. They manage to kill off most of the triads while suffering minimal casualties, leaving only a handful of mobsters who ditched their weapons to fight Eddie unarmed.
- Police Brutality: The Taiwanese police are depicted as such. When Eddie ends up getting arrested together with most of the surviving triads, Eddie's attempts to clarify himself as a member of the Hong Kong police earns him a strip-search and beating.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The events of the movie is based on the real-life abduction of Hong Kong billionaire Teddy Wang
, although the real-life case remains unsolved even to this day. - Save the Villain: Attempted by Eddie when he sees Detective Hung pinned under rubble while trying to escape the burning city block in the ending, but eventually Eddie sensibly decides that it's more important to escape with the child he's saving and Hung is (rightfully) a lost cause.
- Shameful Strip: Eddie Chan is subjected to this from the Taiwanese police during his arrest.
- Stuff Blowing Up: During the final action scene, a stray bullet fired from Eddie hits a gasline, which leads to a set of propane tanks, which starts a fire that within a few minutes results in an explosion that somehow took out half a city block. Complete with traditional Outrun the Fireball scenario action movies like these always have.
- The Man Behind the Man: Inspector Hung is the true Big Bad of the movie.
- Therapy Is for the Weak: Averted; the movie's Action Prologue is spliced together with Eddie consulting his therapist after killing three people while stopping a crime.
- Traitor Shot: One shot like this is focused on Detective Hung, just as Eddie is about to realize he is a traitor.
- Trash the Set: Part of the filming was done in Kowloon Walled City after it was evacuated, just before its demolition. Some of the explosions in the movie are from that demolition.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Detective Hung in the Taipei arrest scene double-crosses and kills the Taiwanese mob leader for snapping at him for failing to keep the police off their tracks.
