Saturday, August 20, 2016

Rumble in the Bronx: Martial Arts Movie Saturday 2

Even the tagline highlights
the fact that Jackie Chan
does his own stunts
Rumble in the Bronx has Jackie Chan rumbling in the Bronx.  That's really all you need to know about the plot.  If you need a little more detail, Jackie Chan comes to the Bronx for his uncle's wedding and suddenly keeps running into trouble.  Jackie Chan manages to witness more robberies during his first two days in America than I have witnessed in my whole life.  Jackie's uncle then goes on his honeymoon and leaves his nephew in charge of sewing up the loose ends as he transfers ownership of his store to one of Jackie's two love interests in the film.

The action in the movie is amazing.  Even twenty years later, I don't feel like it has an equal.  One of my favorite things about watching this film was knowing that Jackie Chan did all his own stunts.  It's flat-out amazing.  Jackie Chan jumps off buildings, kicks people in the face, water skis behind a hovercraft, and so much more.  I could go on for a few more pages, but you really have to see the action in this film to believe it.  Despite all this awesome kung fu action, Jackie Chan is still incredibly down-to-earth.  He's a kung fu champion version of an everyman.  Amazing considering he spends a good portion of the movie disarming the bad guys and throwing them through windows.
Team Glasses/Mullet

Team reformed criminal
The two love interests were one of my favorite parts of the movie.  I found myself thinking, who will Jackie choose.  Will he choose the smart, entrepreneurial Chinese woman or the wild, criminal, racially ambiguous Chinese woman?  I seriously wanted to know....well guess what.  You'll never really find out.  This movie just sort of ends......too early.  I honestly think they just ran out of money.  

Anytime you see pinball machines in a kung fu
film....assume someone will be thrown into them
The last 15 minutes of this film's plot makes absolutely no sense.  But by that point in the film doesn't matter.  You've already bought into the film so much that you don't care what happens.  It's sort of like blowing up the shark in the end of Jaws.  It's completely stupid, but the movie is so good that you really, really don't care.

Make sure to checkout this classic from the 90's and enjoy memories of a time when New York was dangerous but affordable.

P.S. Chan is the man




No comments:

Post a Comment