A team-up with his Chinese opera school brothers Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, this cops-versus-pirates actioner was the movie that transformed Chan from a martial arts star into a director of transcendent physical comedy. One of the first action movies to be set in colonial Hong Kong, Project A is the first of Chan's films to be spiced with outrageous stunts, including a jaw-dropping bicycle chase and a 50-foot fall from a clock tower (inspired by Harold Lloyd’s hour-hand dangle in Safety Last!) that was so terrifying it took Chan three days to work up the courage to attempt it.