GRADE: B+

Two years ago, what fan would have thought that a Jackie Chan movie would be in wide U.S. release not once, but twice in the first seven months of 1996? And who could have imagined that you'd see him in the supermarket, doing a high kick on the cover of GQ?

But there he is. Earlier this year, Rumble in the Bronx reintroduced the world's favorite action hero to American audiences after two abortive attempts in the 80s -- The Big Brawl and The Protector, English-language productions that were every bit as goofy as their Hong Kong counterparts, but held way back on the furious action that's Chan's trademark. Rumble was really, really goofy, but its martial arts action scenes were really, really great, and Jackie raked in the bucks for U.S. distributor New Line Cinema.

The box-office take was relatively modest, but solid. And considering that the film—a worldwide hit—was made on a modest budget in the first place, the profit margins for his U.S. distributor must be just tremendous. Miramax had bought the rights to a few more of Chan's Hong Kong extravaganzas, and rushed ahead with plans to release Supercop as soon as it became obvious that the U.S. would shell out and sit still for Jackie. So now we have it -- juiced up with a digitally remixed soundtrack, a video arcade-style title sequence from R/Greenberg Associates, and oddly anachronistic hip-hop tunes thumping in the background. Like Rumble, Supercop has been trimmed by about 10 minutes since it first made the rounds at U.S. repertory houses and film festivals in 1993, but the lost footage was mostly expository scenes that don't feature our hero. And also like Rumble, Supercop has been atrociously dubbed from the original Cantonese—I prefer subtitles myself, as do most of my moviegoing friends, but I realize that dubbing is absolutely essential to the movie's ability to compete at the American multiplex.

And, sigh, therein lies the problem.

I gave Rumble in the Bronx something of a rave review, and naturally that stemmed less from the innate quality of the film (the Village Voice reviewer accurately described it as "cheerfully crappy") than from the sheer joy of seeing this most worthy of action heroes showcased at last with the big boys of the U.S., in a widescreen, THX-optimized, digitally processed adrenaline rush. After a few months, when the novelty had worn off, it seemed likely that Supercop, by all accounts a superior picture, would knock us out all over again. But the novelty has worn off, and I'm sorry to say that this time it seems a little weird to see our hero in this newly Americanized context.

Does the movie deliver? Oh, sure, it delivers. Jackie goes undercover to bust a drug ring, and winds up chasing the bad guys all the way across Southeast Asia. There's some goofy comedy, a couple of quick hand-to-hand combat sequences, a nice gunfight at about the two-thirds mark, and an extended chase scene at the end. Jackie is flown through town clutching a rope ladder attached to a helicopter, his co-star Michelle Khan (Yeoh) jumps her motorcycle onto the top of a moving train, and martial arts mayhem ensues atop said train. It's all fun, and Khan couldn't be much better at what she does. Jackie's in pretty fine form, but Maggie Cheung is more or less wasted in the continuing thankless role of his girlfriend (Supercop is in fact a sequel to two previous Police Story films, but it's OK to come in in the middle).

I would prefer a little more physical action and a little less gunfire. Supercop is at its most banal when it apes the Western action style -- automatic weapons and lots of them, thank you very much -- and at its best when Jackie is interacting with the scenery and props around him. Most gratifying to longtime fans may be the sheer clarity of the picture. Watching old prints and videotapes of Hong Kong movies can lead you to believe that Chinese films just don't look as good as U.S. films, but Supercop couldn't be sharper. There is, however, a trade-off.

U.S. fans grew accustomed to watching his movies by buying or trading bootlegged videotapes and then gathering around the TV set, or by making pilgrimages to out-of-the-way movie theaters for one-night-only engagements of Jackie Chan double features. Part of the appeal was the charming otherness of this Chinese guy, this madman from halfway around the planet who jumped from clock towers, scrambled across hot burning coals, made a couple of silly faces, and then proceeded to kick everyone's ass. It was the discovery of not just a great movie experience, but an honest-to-God cultural treasure -- if you did your research, you learned that this Chan fellow was wildly popular in his homeland and, indeed, across much of the world. So part of the excitement had to do with making a special trip to see the picture, squinting at subtitles, and listening to Jackie belt out Chinese pop tunes at the end of each film, as the outtake reels unspooled underneath the rolling credits.

(Jackie's adoptive studios have done U.S. audiences the dubious favor of editing out Jackie's singing. In the case of Supercop, it's replaced with Tom Jones doing "Kung Fu Fighting." This is progress?)

What Miramax has given us is a weirdly compromised version of Jackie's picture. The stunts are intact, and less footage is missing from Supercop than from Rumble in the Bronx. But the movie has been changed in a fundamental way, cleaned up for American consumption. Speaking as an American who's underexposed to non-Western culture, I like foreign films, and this one seems to have had a lot of what's foreign taken out of it. I don't know if there's a better way to get these movies to a diverse American audience, but the dubbing, recutting, and rescoring transforms the experience in a subtle but fundamental way. Like a diet soda, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.