Rumble in the Bronx (1995)
Rumble in the Bronx (Chinese title: 紅番區, Hong Faan Kui (“Red Turn District”)) is a 1995 Hong Kong martial arts film starring Jackie Chan, Anita Mui and Françoise Yip. It was directed by Stanley Tong, with action choreographed by Chan and Tong. Released in Hong Kong in 1995, Rumble in the Bronx had a successful worldwide theatrical run, and brought Chan into the North American mainstream. The film is set in the Bronx area of New York City, but was filmed in and around Vancouver, Canada. The film grossed US$76 million worldwide (equivalent to $154 million adjusted for inflation in 2021) against a US$13 million budget, making it the most profitable film of 1996.
Plot.
Ma Hon Keung (馬漢強, Mǎ Hànqiáng) (played by Jackie Chan), a Hong Kong cop comes to New York to attend the wedding of his Uncle Bill (Bill Tung). When he arrives, he meets Danny (Morgan Lam), a disabled Chinese-American boy who is Bill’s neighbor. Uncle Bill owns the Wa-Ha Supermarket in The Bronx, an area with a high level of crime. Unbeknownst to Keung, Bill’s market is a victim of frequent shoplifting and a protection racket, and he is desperate to sell it. Bill meets a potential buyer, Elaine (Anita Mui), who is reluctant to buy it for Bill’s price. Nonetheless, Bill invites Elaine to his wedding. At the wedding, Keung helps negotiate a deal that convinces Elaine to buy the market. Elaine actually buys the supermarket before coming to the wedding, and Keung is simply offering his help in transitioning just before Bill and his wife leave for their honeymoon. One day, members of a local biker gang led by Tony (Marc Akerstream) attempt to shoplift many goods from the Wa-Ha market,
but Keung thwarts and beats them. Later that night, Keung thwarts some gangsters from abducting a woman (Francoise Yip). But when Keung “rescues” her, she attacks him, revealing a ploy to lure him into a spot where Tony’s gang attacks him again for revenge (this time with Tony present). The gang corners Keung into a dead-end alleyway, then severely injures him with glass bottles. Afterwards, Keung almost makes it back to his Uncle’s apartment, but not before fainting in front of Nancy, who is Tony’s girlfriend and the woman who lured Keung earlier. It is revealed that Nancy is Danny’s neglectful older sister. She fixes Keung’s wounds upon realizing that he and Danny are friends. Danny informs Keung about Nancy’s help the next morning, but Keung still doesn’t know that Nancy was the one who lured him.
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Production.
In his autobiography, I am Jackie Chan: My life in Action, Jackie Chan talked about the initial difficulty of filming a movie in Vancouver that is set in New York. The production team initially had to put up fake graffiti during the day and take it all down during the evening, while simultaneously making sure that no mountains made it into the background. However, Chan decided that it was best that the production team focus on the action only without worrying too much about scenery. In his review, Roger Ebert notes that there are mountains in the background, which are not present in the NYC landscape. There is also an NYC helicopter which displays a Canadian civil registration (C-GZPM – A Bell JetRanger). The original spoken dialogue consisted of all of the actors speaking their native language most of the time. In the completely undubbed soundtrack, available on the Warner Japanese R2 DVD release, Jackie Chan actually speaks his native Cantonese while Françoise Yip and Morgan Lam (the actors playing Nancy and Danny) speak English.
Release.
New Line Cinema acquired the film for international distribution and commissioned a new music score and English dub (with participation from Jackie Chan). A scene of Keung’s airplane flying into John F. Kennedy International Airport was added to the opening credits. Three scenes were added exclusively for the international version: a shot of the syndicate’s car pulling up to the diamond deal, Keung and Nancy escaping from the nightclub after the bikers spot them together, and White Tiger taking a golf shot before a subordinate approaches him with his phone. None of these scenes were in the original Hong Kong release. In comparison to the Hong Kong version, 17 minutes of cuts were made, and the new English dub changed some of the context of the characters’ conversations. Keung being a cop and having a girlfriend in Hong Kong is never mentioned. Keung’s father being shot by a robber years ago is also not mentioned. In the New Line Cinema edit, Elaine buys the grocery store upon her first meeting with Uncle Bill, but in the Hong Kong version, she decides to buy the market at Bill’s wedding.