Rush Hour came along at just the right moment to take full advantage of his unique brand of humor, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone else who could have taken his place. While the latter wasn’t particularly well-received, the first three were all sleeper hits that went on to become cult favorites, and Tucker was in his prime. IT EFFECTIVELY HARNESSED THE POWER OF PEAK CHRIS TUCKERīy the time 1998 rolled around, Chris Tucker had already scored a breakout performance in hit comedy Friday, a scene-stealing appearance in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, and a memorable cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, as well as a starring role in Money Talks, the feature debut of Rush Hour director Brett Ratner. Rush Hour went on to become his first film to gross over $100 million and helped solidify his status as one of the world’s most exciting, most recognizable big screen heroes. The genre was ripe for a new twist, and Chan’s clever fight choreography and high-flying stuntwork proved irresistible. The success of Rumble in the Bronx gave Hollywood producers faith that audiences were finally ready to embrace Jackie Chan as a star – moreover, that they were hungry for it – so they smartly locked him down for a buddy-cop flick that played to his strengths: action and comedy. Seriously, if you haven’t seen any of the Project A, Armour of God, or early Police Story movies, you need to get on that ASAP. Frustrated by his lack of success breaking into the American market, Jackie went back to Hong Kong, where he continued to make a ton of kickass martial arts comedies. That film’s director, Robert Clouse, tried to make Chan a star in his own right with 1980’s The Big Brawl, but it flopped, as did another attempt five years later called The Protector. What many of them likely didn’t know was that he technically made his Hollywood debut trying to bear-hug Bruce Lee in the seminal 1973 masterpiece Enter the Dragon ( spoiler: bad idea). IT TURNED JACKIE CHAN INTO A HOLLYWOOD STARĪ good chunk of American moviegoers got their first taste of Jackie Chan in 1996, two years before Rush Hour, when Rumble in the Bronx made its way stateside after its theatrical run in Hong kong and kicked off a new wave of martial arts mania in Hollywood. So what makes it so special, and why does it hold up to an umpteenth rewatch? We’ve got some ideas. It’s pretty standard fare for the genre, which by then had already given us iconic pairs like Lethal Weapon‘s Riggs and Murtaugh and Beverly Hills Cop‘s Axel Foley and Billy Rosewood, and the film itself isn’t perfect - cultural stereotypes abound, and a shadow hangs over the whole production in the form of #MeToo-ed director Brett Ratner. Of course, the two cops dislike each other at first, but eventually find common ground and work together to rescue the missing girl and close the case. The film centers on the retrieval of a Chinese consul’s kidnapped daughter and stars Tucker as a fast-talking LAPD detective who’s tasked with the demeaning job of keeping Chan’s Hong Kong inspector out of the FBI’s hair during the investigation. The two of them were brought together for a little action-comedy called Rush Hour, which opened on September 18, 1998, and one of the most memorable buddy-cop duos ever was born. Way back in 1998, Jackie Chan was a big star in Hong Kong and well known to martial arts aficionados around the world, while Chris Tucker was an up-and-coming stand-up comic who had begun to make a name for himself in an eclectic string of independent productions.
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