Rumble in the Bronx (1995)
Director: Stanley Tong
Stars: Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, and Dozens of broken bodies
In Jackie Chan's American breakthrough film (which I also saw in the theater), Chan plays a Hong Kong Champion (I'm thinking knitting. Chan's an awesome knitter) who comes to New York for his uncle's wedding. Chan stays on to help the new owner of his uncle's grocery store and encounters a rowdy gang intent on chasing him around the city. Meanwhile, there's some plot about diamonds being stolen, ANOTHER gang of well dressed bad guys, and lots of shit being destroyed. In short, a fun ride of violence. Get your ticket at the door slamming into someone's face.
Six Things I've Learned from Rumble in the Bronx
1. I never knew New York had such beautiful mountains!
2. Playing glass bottle baseball in a dead end alley is no way to welcome a visitor to your city. Use plastic bottles first to get them accustomed to your culture.
3. The Syndicate practices unfair hiring practices by only hiring large giant headed white guys in suits. I'm sure there are many other ethnic types who are large, have giant heads, and also own themselves a nice suit. Don't discriminate assholes!
4. People you have just beat the shit out of will instantly forgive you if you say that you wanna drink tea with them. People love their tea time.
5. While refrigerators should never be used to lock someone in (your safety tip of the day), they are quite fine to use to protect yourself from swords and sticks and in certain cases used to cause concussions by slamming them into your enemies. The more you know.
6. After getting the Syndicate arrested, the cops will have no problems with you driving a hovercraft onto a golf course to run over the head of the Syndicate and expose his buttocks for all to see. It's police procedure.
I'm not a big fan of this movie. With movies like Drunken Master, Police Story 1,2,and 3, Armour of God, how did it take so long for him to finally have an American release, I mean he had been making movies since at least the 70's. This movie to me is when his career starts falling off and he starts doing horrible movies just for the sake of making an American movie , such as idk a movie with Jennifer Love Hewitt about a tuxedo. Oh how I miss the old Jackie Chan
ReplyDeleteI like it, but it's not one of Chan's better films. Thing is, they tried to make him a big star in the US with the Big Brawl (and appearing in one of the Cannonball Run films) but it flopped. Yeah, his later american stuff isn't as good as say Wheels on Meals or Police Story, but it had it's moments. As much as I dislike em, the Rush Hour movies really made him a huge star here.
DeleteThe thing to me with the Rush Hour movies is that by the time they were made it was a worn out format. I mean 48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon etc. take your pick. If Jackie did it first or was one of the first to do a culture clash buddy cop movie, it could have been something special.
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