Rumble in the Bronx
( Hong faan kui in Cantonese)
action-comedy movie starring Jackie Chan and Anita Mui.
Directed by Stanley Tong
Filmed in 1995 and released in 1996, Rumble in the Bronx had a successful theater run, and brought Chan into the American mainstream. Rumble in the Bronx was filmed in and around Vancouver, but was set in the Bronx area of New York City.
The movie is known for bad dubbing (despite appearances, it was actually made by a Hong Kong movie company and not Americans) and for many minor easy to spot bloopers (e.g., the Game Gear being played with no game). Anyone familiar with either New York or Vancouver's geography (both topographical and urban) can easily spot giveaways that the film was made nowhere near the Bronx: the Coast Mountains, the Scotiabank Tower, the Sportmart store at Thurlow and Alberni, B.C. Place, Science World are all visible at various points throughout the movie.
Jackie Chan also pulled
off some death defying stunts in the movie, and spent much of the filming time
with a leg in a cast. His foot had not yet healed when it was time to film the
movie's climax and so the crew simply coloured a sock to wear over his cast resembling
the sneaker on his other foot. Also, the lead actress and several stunt doubles
broke ankles during the shooting of a motorcycle stunt.
Critical reception
When
released in North America, Rumble in the Bronx received generally good reviews,
as most critics were happy a Jackie Chan film was finally getting a wide theatre
release in North America.
Box Office
In Hong Kong, Rumble
in the Bronx earned HK $56,911,136, making it the biggest film of the year in
Hong Kong and one of Chan's biggest ever.
It was also Chan's North American breakthrough. Opening on 1,736 North American screens, it was number one at the box office in its opening weekend, grossing US $9,858,380 ($5,678 per screen). It finished its North American run with US $32,392,047.
International
version
The international version of Rumble in the Bronx was dubbed to English
with participation by Jackie Chan. A scene of Chan on an airplane to New York
was added to the opening credits and another scene where Keung and Nancy escape
from the nightclub was also added. Neither of these scenes were in the original
Hong Kong release.
Seventeen minutes of cuts were made, including:
A scene in which two gang members extort money, and steal some items from beside the cash register.
Some dialogue between Chan and Anita Mui at Uncle Bill's wedding.
A lecture by Chan on martial arts.
A scene where Chan travels to a market and sees the gang members who had extorted money from Uncle Bill. Before he has a chance to fight, the entire biker gang shows up, so Chan instead calls the police. (This scene is restored in the US cable version).
In the Hong Kong version, Chan's speech to the gang about wasted lives is longer.
Chan's song during the end credits is replaced by the song Kung Fu by the band Ash, the lyrics of which mention Jackie Chan, as well as other key figures from Hong Kong cinema.
“ Last night Jackie Chan came around,
I played
pool with him and we hung out.
”
The international version was cut still further for the Buena Vista's UK and Australian releases of the film - 42 seconds of a scene where gangsters batted bottles at Chan's character were docked.
The Sega Game Gear is a handheld game console which was Sega's response to Nintendo's Game Boy. It was the third commercially available color handheld console, after the Atari Lynx and the Turbo Express.
Anita Mui Yim-fong (Traditional Chinese: ???; Simplified Chinese: ???; Hanyu Pinyin: Méi Yànfang; Cantonese Yale: muìh yihm fòng; October 10, 1963–December 30, 2003) was a popular Hong Kong pop singer and actress.
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