When such superlative performers can be gathered into one cast for one series entry, we should realize just how great this "Police Story" series was and is. Even after all these years.
Every player is so completely believable, it would be hard to highlight any one.
Besides being top-notch entertainment, there is a double plot line and message: A policeman's lot is not a happy one and a policeman's wife's lot is possibly worse, yes, but there is another point not clearly explicated: Why are lives and resources put to such risk?
The police brag about having captured a "record amount" of some particular drug, of "having taken it off the street," but all that really means is the price to the ultimate consumer, the addict, goes up.
Sorry, but the iron laws of economics apply: Lower supply for unchanged demand equals higher price.
So the addict might have to burgle more homes, or hold up more convenience stores, or turn more tricks.
What such shows, and what the "news" and entertainment media and the government school systems, nearly always fail to tell us is that, besides those iron laws, there is a moral failure too.
Most people, including the users, agree that "drugs are bad." But is it really intelligent or practical for there to be laws against them?
In fact, what we do not get told, as we should, is that it is the laws that create the societal problems. Especially the crime.
Nations and other jurisdictions that have decriminalized drug use have seen a huge drop in crime and the costs of crime.
Crime-fighters make good TV shows and movies, but, in real life, using police as soldiers in the Insane War on Some Drugs is expensive in money, property, and lives -- and, far worse, in restrictions on lives of even the most innocent.
"Police Story" continues, after all these years, to be a TV series standing high in my estimation. Even when I oppose the laws and government actions involved in this kind of story, I highly recommend this series and this entry.
