POLICE STORY (1985)
Five, 9pm
One of Jackie Chan’s personal favourites among his pre-Hollywood features, Police Story helped to establish the now familiar genre of the kung fu cop thriller. Chan directs and stars as a Hong Kong detective who brings down a drugs cartel almost single-handedly, then has to fight off an army of hitmen aiming to kill a key witness. The slapstick comedy is relatively modest by Chan’s standards but the stunts took a serious toll on the star, including a dislocated pelvis and a spinal injury that almost left him paralysed. Later, on BBC One (11.35pm), Rumble in the Bronx is the film that made Chan a success in America. (99 min)
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BIRD (1988)
BBC Four, 10pm
When the jazz legend Charlie “Bird” Parker died, the coroner estimated his age to be 65. He was actually 34, but ravaged by years of heroin addiction. Clint Eastwood’s leisurely portrait of the saxophone maestro, superbly played by Forest Whitaker, attempts no psychological explanation of the forces that destroyed him. Consequently this is a largely sensory experience, gliding through subterranean nightclubs like a kind of freewheeling, visual jazz. The digitally enhanced soundtrack, incorporating Parker’s own recordings, won an Oscar. (161 min)
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LONDINIUM (2001)
ITV1, midnight
Set in a quaint tourist fantasy of London, Londinium is a modest attempt to stage a Woody Allen-style ensemble comedy on this side of the Atlantic. Its writer, director and star is Mike Binder (of US TV’s The Mind of a Married Man), who plays an American comedy writer working in Britain. Binder’s hapless hero marries Irène Jacob’s make-up girl but falls for Mariel Hemingway’s flighty actress, leading to a clash with her husband, played by Colin Firth. Stephen Fry’s cameo marks a high point in Binder’s inoffensive but very slight marital farce, which was clearly designed to appeal to American viewers. (87 min)