Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)
Police Story 3: Supercop released as Supercop in the United States and also known as Jackie Chan’s Supercop, is a 1992 Hong Kong action film directed by Stanley Tong. It is the third installment in the Police Story series, with Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung and Bill Tung reprising their roles from the first two films, and Michelle Yeoh introduced as a new co-lead alongside Chan. In Supercop, series protagonist Chan Ka-kui (Chan) is selected as Hong Kong’s “supercop” to work undercover with elite Chinese policewoman Jessica Yang (Yeoh) and take down a drug cartel.
Plot:
Ka-Kui is the “supercop” of the Hong Kong police with amazing martial arts skills. He is sent to Guangzhou, where the Chinese police force’s Interpol director, Superintendent Jessica Yang, briefs him on his next assignment. The target is Chaibat, a drug lord based in Hong Kong. To infiltrate Chaibat’s organization, Ka-Kui must get close to Panther, Chaibat’s henchman, who is being held in a Chinese prison camp. Ka-Kui, posing as a fellow prisoner, aids Panther’s escape.
A grateful Panther invites Ka-Kui to go with him to Hong Kong and join Chaibat’s gang. Panther meets up with some of his other men, and vouches for Ka-Kui. The group heads for Hong Kong.
On the way, they pass through Ka-Kui’s supposed home village, and Panther insists that Ka-Kui visit his family there. He does not actually know anyone in the village, but is pleasantly relieved to be greeted by undercover police posing as his family, with Yang as his sister.
Box office:
Police Story 3 grossed HK$32,609,783 (US$4,212,833) in its Hong Kong theatrical run. In Taiwan, it grossed NT$64,576,200 (US$2,607,187). In Japan, it earned ¥763 million (US$6.95 million) the box office. In South Korea, it grossed US$3.71 million, adding up to US$17,530,020 grossed in East Asia. With a budget $900K Combined, the film grossed an estimated US$34,391,494 (equivalent to $77,000,000 in 2024) from the worldwide box office. In the United States, the film was screened in 1993 at the Hogg Memorial Auditorium in Austin, Texas, along with the original Police Story, with both films well-received among Austin audiences at the time.
A significant aspect of this film is that it was the first Jackie Chan film from Hong Kong to use sync sound, allowing all the actors’ voices to be recorded as they spoke on scene, rather than dubbed over by different actors later.
Exterior scenes were filmed in Hong Kong Island, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur. Interior scenes were shot in Kuala Lumpur.
In one scene of the film, Michelle Yeoh and a crewman were almost killed when she jumped onto a car while Jackie Chan was driving and accidentally slipped off the side. Chan grabbed Yeoh and attempted to lift her back onto the car while a crewman also jumped onto the car to help, but Yeoh slipped from Chan’s grasp and both Yeoh and the crewman fell into incoming traffic, prompting the entire crew to rush to help.