Asian Film Strike has it on good terms that a new addition to the highly acclaimed Police Story franchise is on its way next year with the tentatively-titled Police Story 2022. Reportedly, the film will reunite Bleeding Steel star and director Jackie Chan and Leo Zhang for a thematic new chapter in the longstanding kung fu cop franchise. Plot and cast details are pending, as are shooting dates and locations.
Chan was well-over 60 films in when he launched the Police Story film series in 1985 with producers Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho. Created in response to his own disappointing experience on the set of James Glickenhaus cop thriller, The Protector, Police Story was yet another template on which Chan would continue to reshape the way action cinema would be watched and perceived by audiences around the world, with a signature focus on cinematography, editing and his ultimate bread and butter: kinetic, record-setting fight choreography and grand-scale stuntwork.
In the years that followed, Chan grew the franchise with Police Story 2 in 1988, prior to headlining Police Story 3: Supercop with Michelle Yeoh who would then take the wheel for its own sequel, Supercop 2, with a cameo by Chan. The actor/filmmaker followed suit with Jackie Chan’s First Strike in 1996 with director Stanley Tong, before twice rebooting the series from 2004 with Benny Chan’s New Police Story, and Ding Sheng’s hollowed, more grittier Police Story 2013 (a.k.a. Police Story: Lockdown).
Zhang’s next release remains pending with The Hunting, starring Olga Kurylenko and Tony Chiu-Wai Leung. Chan’s recent credits include Stanley Tong’s Vanguard, Oleg Stepchenko’s Journey To China: The Mystery Of The Iron Mask, and Scott Waugh’s Project X-Traction, all which have pending U.S. release dates TBD.