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Matt Glasby

“Don’t let the situation change you,” says Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong cop midway through Rumble in the Bronx, the riotous action comedy from 1995. “You have to change it.”
When it came to cracking America, it was advice Chan would learn to heed himself. His first effort, 1980’s The Big Brawl, lacked directorial dynamism.
“No one will pay money to see Jackie Chan walk!” Chan complained ­– correctly ­– in his autobiography.
The fight scenes in 1985’s The Protector so appalled him that he re-edited the film for its Hong Kong release. And The Cannonball Run series (1981-1984) cast him as a Japanese character, confusing the other stars.


“Sammy Davis Jr spoke Japanese to me every time we met,” Chan wrote later. “I didn’t bother correcting him.”
The turning point came with Rumble in the Bronx, a joint venture between Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest and Hollywood’s New Line Pictures, directed by Stanley Tong Kwai-lai from a script by Edward Tang and Fibe Ma.

“It was a Hong Kong production, but we always had one foot in the international market from the start,” wrote Chan. “Producers Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho had high hopes that this one would finally open the golden door to the West for us.”
The key was not letting the situation change Chan’s star persona, just working out how to transplant it to America.
Well, Canada. Despite the title, Rumble in the Bronx was filmed in Vancouver. This meant shots of the Statue of Liberty, JFK airport and the Brooklyn Bridge had to be inserted into the action; snowy mountains are clearly visible in the background; and the production team covered the walls with graffiti every day before shooting.

The film begins with Keung (Chan) visiting his Uncle Bill (Bill Tung), who’s living the immigrant dream of assimilation in New York.
He owns a 3,000 sq ft apartment (“If I had it back in Hong Kong I’d be set for life!”), is selling his supermarket to Elaine (Cantopop star Anita Mui Yim-fong) and is marrying local girl Whitney (Carrie Cain Sparks).
When Keung arrives, Bill tries to impress upon him the importance of fitting in. Speak English, he advises, “You’re in the USA now.” In reality, most of the dialogue was dubbed, leading to some erratic line readings.
They’re not the only eccentricities. Seen through Tong’s viewfinder, America is a colourful, lawless place, somewhere from the movies rather than a map.
Beyond Bruce Lee: the rise of Hong Kong cinema during the 1970s
Keung, his love interest, Nancy (Françoise Yip Fong-wa), and her little brother, Danny (Morgan Lam), are menaced by a gang of bizarrely dressed thugs led by Tony (Marc Akerstream) who ride motorbikes and quad bikes like extras from a Mad Max film.
Later, they cross paths with machine-gun-toting diamond thieves working for big boss White Tiger (Kris Lord). The climax, in which the villains commandeer a hovercraft with Keung water-skiing behind, then proceed to tear through the city, has to be seen to be believed.
For a visual summary of the film’s giddy charms, look no further than the moment a van drops a load of colourful balls off a roof, and they bounce joyfully – if randomly – through the streets.

But the star of the show is undoubtedly Chan, his talents gradually revealed throughout the film.
One moment he’s casually walking on his hands, the next he’s jumping from a multistorey car park to the next building – an incredible 8.5 metre (30ft) leap Chan performed himself, without a harness.
When Martial Art World asked him if he knew he could make it, he admitted, “It’s a guess.”
Of the many, many fights, the highlight is an inventive set-to in the gang’s clubhouse, which encompasses a pool table, a chandelier, a pinball machine, a ski and several fridges, which Chan spotted in a flea market and thought he could use on-screen.

But like the greatest musical and silent film stars, he always gives the impression he’s making things up as he goes along.
As veteran critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Tribune: “Any attempt to defend this movie on rational grounds is futile […]
“The whole point is Jackie Chan – and, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, he does what he does better than anybody.
“There is a physical confidence, a grace, an elegance to the way he moves. There is humour to the choreography of the fights […] He’s having fun. If we allow ourselves to get in the right frame of mind, so are we.”

America might not have known it, but Chan had been training for this his whole life, with roles that underlined his ordinary-guy persona while emphasising his extraordinary abilities.
The film ends with a blooper reel showing him breaking his ankle jumping onto the hovercraft, then finishing the film in a plaster cast. Somehow, he still manages to smile for the camera and give the audience a thumbs up.
He had reason to be happy. Rumble in the Bronx would go on to become the highest-grossing film released in Hong Kong, winning a Hong Kong Film Award for best action direction.

It also broke box office records in China and was named one of the year’s top 20 R-rated movies in the United States, launching his Hollywood career.
“And just like that,” Chan wrote, “I was a big star in America after 15 years of trying.” Or, in other words, he’d changed the situation without changing himself.


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American cinema

How Jackie Chan’s action comedy Rumble in the Bronx opened ‘the golden door to the West’ for the Hong Kong star, launching his Hollywood career

Jackie Chan in a still from “Rumble in the Bronx”, the 1995 action comedy that launched the Hong Kong martial artist’s Hollywood career. Photo: New Line Cinema

Chan in a still from “Rumble in the Bronx”. Photo: New Line Cinema

A promotional poster for “Rumble in the Bronx”. Photo: New Line Cinema

Chan holds on to a runaway hovercraft in a still from “Rumble in the Bronx”. Photo: New Line Cinema

Chan in a still from “Rumble in the Bronx”, which exhibited the Hong Kong star’s talent and launched his career in the US. Photo: New Line Cinema

Chan performs a fight scene in a still from “Rumble in the Bronx”. Photo: New Line Cinema

Chan performs a stunt in a still from “Rumble in the Bronx”. Photo: New Line Cinema

How 2 of the best films about 1980s New York were shot by Hong Kong’s Mabel Cheung – The Illegal Immigrant, and An Autumn’s Tale starring Chow Yun-fat

A still from “An Autumn’s Tale”.

Cherie Chung and Chow Yun-fat in a still from Mabel Cheung’s 1987 romance “An Autumn’s Tale”, shot in a down-at-heel New York.

Film director Mabel Cheung posing with her Hong Kong Film Awards trophy in 1986. Photo: SCMP

Ching Yong-cho (left) and Wu Fu-sheng in a still from “The Illegal Immigrant”.

Alex Law and Mabel Cheung, pictured in 2009. Photo: SCMP.

A still from “The Illegal Immigrant”.

Chow Yun-fat and Cherie Chung in a still from “An Autumn’s Tale”.

How Johnny English Reborn, 2011 James Bond parody starring Rowan Atkinson, went out of its way to draw Chinese film-goers

Rowan Atkinson and Hong Kong actor Paul Che (right) in a still from “Johnny English Reborn” (2011).

Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English  and Williams Belle as Ling in a still from  2011 film “Johnny English Reborn”, a spoof James Bond spy movie whose writers pulled out the stops to attract Chinese audiences.

Gillian Anderson as Pegasus, Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English and Daniel Kaluuya as Colin Tucker in a still from “Johnny English Reborn” (2011).

Director Oliver Parker and Atkinson on the set of “Johnny English Reborn” (2011).

Atkinson and Hong Kong actor Paul Che (right) in a still from “Johnny English Reborn” (2011).

How 2012, Roland Emmerich’s end-of-the-world drama, broke Chinese box-office records – despite not being the ‘love letter to China’ some thought

John Cusack as Jackson Curtis, a failed writer who tries to save his family as the world ends; and Morgan Lily as his daughter Lilly in a still from “2012”.

John Cusack plays a failed writer who tries to save his family as the world ends in “2012” (2009). Roland Emmerich’s apocalyptic drama broke box-office records in China, but why?

(From left) Morgan Lily, Amanda Peet and Liam James in a still from “2012”.

A still from “2012”.

How Michael Mann’s 2015 film Blackhat mixes hacking, Thor’s Chris Hemsworth and Hong Kong to disappointing effect

Tang Wei and Chris Hemsworth ride an escalator in a station on Hong Kong MTR subway network in a still from “Blackhat” (2015). Michael Mann’s 2015 film had plenty of expertly filmed action set pieces, but little else going for it. Photo: Universal Pictures

Wang Leehom in a still from “Blackhat”. Photo: Edko Films Limited/Kingmart Advertising Company

Hemsworth (left) and director Michael Mann on the set of “Blackhat”. Photo: Edko Films Limited/Kingmart Advertising Company

Tang and Wang in a still from “Blackhat”. Photo: Edko Films Limited/Kingmart Advertising Company

Hemsworth in a still from “Blackhat”. Photo: Edko Films Limited/Kingmart Advertising Company

How Hong Kong setting gave Chris Evans superhero movie Push a real feel a world away from the Marvel films he would go on to star in as Captain America

Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning in a still from “Push”. Photo: Hirotake Okazaki/Summit Entertainment.

Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning in a still from “Push”. The movie harnessed the energy of Hong Kong, where it was set, to make for a superhero that feels more real than those of the Marvel films Evans would go on to star in. Photo: Hirotake Okazaki/Summit Entertainment.

Li Xiaolu as triad watcher Pop Girl in a still from “Push”. Photo: Summit Entertainment

(Front row from left) Jacky Heung, Hal Yamanouchi and Fung Chi-kwan in a still from “Push”. Photo: Hirotake Okazaki/Summit Entertainment

Director Paul McGuigan (second from left), Dakota Fanning (centre) and Chris Evans (right) on the set of “Push”. Photo: Hirotake Okazaki/Summit Entertainment

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Jackie Chan tried to crack America in the 1980s with The Cannonball Run and The Big Brawl, but it was his 1995 film that launched him on the international stage
It featured Anita Mui, but through graceful fight scenes and stunts, Chan emerged the star of the show, and proved that he did what he did ‘better than anybody’


Jackie Chan may be a household name today, but it took 15 years of trying and 1995’s Rumble in the Bronx for the Hong Kong martial artist to win over international audiences and become a Hollywood star.
