After explosively taking out his partner's killer, Officer Billy Wong (Jackie Chan, OPERATION CONDOR) is busted down to crowd control, placing him at a PR event where Laura Shapiro (Saun Ellis, SWEET COUNTRY) - daughter of businessman/suspected drug runner Martin Shapiro (Ron Dandrea), the surname possibly chosen as a nod to director James Glickenhaus' own producing partner Leonard Shapiro - is nabbed by gun-toting thugs. Wong and new partner Danny Garroni (Danny Aiello, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA) trace a number called repeatedly by Shapiro's own muscle Benny Garucci (Bill Wallace, A FORCE OF ONE) to Hong Kong. The state department suspect Martin Shapiro of partnering with Hong Kong gangster Howard Ko (Roy Chiao, BLOODSPORT) in the heroin trade and, improbably, send Wong and Garroni to Hong Kong as special advisers to the police. When they arrive in Hong Kong, they face resistance not only from Ko's men, but also the police, and Garroni who has been sent to arrange an exchange more amicable to Shapiro's and Ko's drug trade (seemingly staffed by women who do all of their work in the nude).

THE PROTECTOR was a failed attempt by Golden Harvest and Jackie Chan to break into the US market, and it is easy to see why. Chan's English has improved since the eighties, but not by much; however, his newer vehicles at least better tailor the dialogue to his delivery. In THE PROTECTOR, all of his tough-guy and snarky dialogue rings false, and most of the English actors almost sound dubbed, or at least very stilted while Aiello's sidekick comic riffs are ill-timed (as does the attempted banter between the buddy cops). There's plenty of action (director Glickenhaus seems to enjoy the ability to better exploit Golden Harvest's financial resources in the NY first act) but little of Chan's acrobatics until nearly forty minutes into the film (and Chan would end up refilming some of the action scenes as well as cut the film down for pacing for the shorter Hong Kong version). Presumably the Chinese actors spoke a mix of English and Cantonese (and it seems like the dubbers only redubbed the Cantonese dialogue so one or two characters appear to have different voices at different times). The director's son Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus appears briefly as the toddler son of Billy's fallen partner.