Dragon Ma (Jackie Chan) is a sergeant in the troubled HK Navy. Problems abound, not least their so far unsuccessful capture of ANY pirates in the recent past. Things reach a head when most of the Navy’s ship are sunk prior to Project A – an operation designed to capture the evil pirate San Po (Dick Wei) and put an end to his reign of terror for good. The Navy is disbanded and incorporated into the police force – and their cruel inspector Hong Tin Chi (Yuen Biao). However, circumstances lead to a chance to take down San Po after all – with help from the unlikeliest of sources including Inspector Hong and local ne’er do well Fei (Sammo Hung)…

Project A (along with its sequel) is Jackie Chan’s homage to his silent-era film heroes. As a pirate movie, it doesn’t work – only about 5% takes place on the sea – but in every other regard, the film is a masterpiece. In this age of CGI, the real flesh and bones that are risked in the film’s stunts can seem passé, but taken in the context of the film and the age in which it was made it is truly breathtaking. It’s too easy to forget that before computers could put you anywhere and make you do anything, people like Jackie Chan (and before him, the likes of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd) did it for real. And would YOU want to be up on that clock tower with just a few awnings to break your fall? Especially when you’ve watched the outtakes and seen how easy it is for it to go horribly wrong?

There are far too many stand out moments to mention, but apart from the clock tower scene, you also have the wildly inventive (and funny) bicycle chase scene, and the finale against the pirates. Here, Dick Wei establishes himself as the quintessential 80’s bad man as San Po. Apart from the obvious show-stoppers, we have a nice line in sight gags in the background that add a nice touch – such as the loyal sailor trying to wear his navy cap OVER his police hat, and the sailors playing Frisbee with their police hats!

Here we also have the archetypal “Three Brothers” film. It’s hard to believe sometimes that they only made three films together where they were all given decent screen time, but this was the first and paved the way for the characters they would play in future productions; Jackie as a happy-go-lucky hero (pretty much his standard role), Sammo as a somewhat shady character from the underworld and Yuen Biao as a manic “loose cannon”, capable of wildly unpredictable behaviour. It’s interesting that their characters never stray too far from this template in subsequent three-handers.

Although its success is taken for granted today, it’s worth mentioning that quite a lot was at stake for this film. The previous year’s DRAGON LORD had failed to light up the Asian box-office, and even his previous vehicle (1980’s Golden Harvest debut YOUNG MASTER) didn’t fare as well as expected. In fact, it was starting to look like Jackie was a one-trick pony, and the success of DRUNKEN MASTER was starting to seem like quite a long time ago. By moving away from the period piece and setting the action in the early twentieth century, Jackie proved that he could also be an innovator. This film really does mark the decline of the Qing period pieces that had been so popular during the seventies, and gave action fans a reason to go back to the cinema.

I would have to say it’s faultless.