Like most of Chan's movies from the last few years, Supercop marries action and comedy into a thoroughly-entertaining whole. If you think action-comedy means dozens of people dying, interspersed only by a stone-faced Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liner, it's time to rip out that page in your personal dictionary and write a new entry. Chan delivers the goods, pulling off a difficult combination of thrilling action and genial humor. It's not nearly as goofy or slapstick-laden as his previous American release, Rumble in the Bronx; Supercop is more of a straight-faced action flick than that film was. But the humor pops up at just the right times, and sets off the car crashes, exploding buildings, and hand-to-hand fight scenes nicely.

The story is little more than a scaffold on which to drape the action, so I won't waste your time on it. In a nutshell: Chan's a Hong Kong cop working with the Chinese military (in the person of Michelle Khan, also known as Michelle Yeoh) on a dangerous undercover effort to bring down a drug kingpin. There's little in the way of plot twists, save a very funny encounter with Chan's girlfriend (played by the always-winning HK film star Maggie Cheung) who doesn't know he's undercover and puts them both in jeopardy.

Enough about the story. Here's a friendly piece of advice: bring a jawstrap to the theatre, lest you find your chin hitting the floor time and again at the latest stunt. Jackie Chan and his equally-butt-kicking sidekick Michelle Khan have awesome martial arts moves to spare, but the big-ticket thrills come from the amazing permutations of stunts involving trains, helicopters, motorcycles, and more. If you've seen the previews, you've gotten a taste of the good stuff--but don't fear that you've seen it all. In the theatre, there's a lot more to enjoy. As an added bonus, there's also great whacking gobs of guns, rocket launchers, grenades, exploding buildings, and other you'll-put-your-eye-out goodies; Rumble in the Bronx, by comparison, was more straightforward brawling and martial arts. (Of course, there was the hovercraft scene...)

Chan and Khan are on-screen for most of the movie, and they're a delightful team. It's rare that Chan shares the screen with a female co-star who is as accomplished a butt-kicker as he is, but Khan (another very popular Asian action star) has what it takes. If anything, I believe the Seattle movie-goers I saw the film with were won over more by Khan than by Chan; they expected Chan to be terrific, but few were prepared for the amazing whirlwind of Michelle Khan. This isn't like Eraser, where the female sidekick gets one or two chances to beat the bad guys up (usually involving a cheesy crotch kick) before being taken hostage again; here, Khan slams the hapless gangsters around from start to finish, and it is Khan who pulls off perhaps the best stunt of the film. It involves a motorcycle and a train, and while it's perhaps not as visually exciting as Chan doing the rope ladder/helicopter routine, it's a lot more tense. There's that awful moment where you see Khan on the bike and you think "No...no...she's not gonna...no way...holy christ!" That sequence stayed with me after the film ended, especially when you see the outtakes that play during the credits and realize that she had to do the stunt multiple times to get it right. Ouch!

Are they really doing that? Yes, Virginia, they really are--and how! A distinctive feature of Chan's films is that he (and here, Khan) do their own stunts. No trick photography, no stuntmen, no blue screens; just Chan and Khan fighting on a moving train, hanging from a helicopter high above a city, and on and on. The infamous outtake sequences that play during the credits feature a number of stunts-gone-wrong, including a jaw-clenching bit where Khan leaps onto the hood of Chan's speeding car. She starts to fall off, and an assistant jumps down to grab her--but it's too late, and Khan drops off onto the pavement...followed by the assistant! My eyes boggled as the other cars on the road swerved to avoid running over them, and I exhaled only when I realized that, despite appearances, the cars weren't going all that fast.

Stunt-adoration aside, I can only say that Supercop delivers the goods in spades and is well worth the price of admission. There's lots of violence, but it's not bloody; people get shot and fall down, without exploding blood packets spattering the cast. Kids who enjoy Arnie flicks or even the high-action afternoon cartoon shows should have no problem whatsoever with this film. If you enjoyed Rumble in the Bronx, you should love Supercop--just keep in mind that there's not as much out-and-out comedy this time around.

There's one and only one low point: the dubbing. Chan and Khan did their own lines for the English version, which is a blessing. But even so, there is little or no effort made to match the English dialogue with the actors' mouth movements. The bad dubbing makes the first few minutes of the film a bit rocky, since it opens with several scenes of dialogue before the action starts. Once things start exploding, you don't notice the dubbing anymore; too much is happening, and the actors are moving around so much you're not really seeing their lips move that much anyway. So be prepared to ride out the opening scenes, and you'll be well-rewarded.

Stacked against Hollywood's big summer movies, Supercop is far and away the most enjoyable. I'd rank The Phantom as an equal success only in terms of knowing when to do action and when to do comedy, but Supercop's action is in a class by itself. To be honest, the big-budget technical thrills of Twister and Independence Day pale in comparison to the elemental basics of Supercop: incredibly talented human beings working in incredibly dangerous situations to deliver the biggest action and the best laughs they can, without the crutches of stunt doubles and computer graphics. Supercop is the real thing.