Rumble in the Bronx Review by Beth Ann Griese

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Starring	Jackie Chan
Director	Siu-Tung Ching
Year	1995
What it's worth		Second Run* (See it as part of a double-feature or at a dollar house. * - With caveat)

The movie even makes sure you don't forget that; while the credits roll, you see outtakes from all the people who get hurt during the filming, including Chan himself, who broke an ankle while jumping onto a boat. But you also watch some of the fun outtakes, including his jubilation after successful stunts and his amusement at some of the movie's own jokes.

It's that humor and all-out guts that make Rumble in the Bronx different from most action films American audiences have seen. Most American action stars love to see their face and their muscles on the screen; their focus is on looking good. Bruce Lee, the other star who comes to mind when people start talking about martial arts movies, concentrated on the fight; his focus was on the beauty of martial arts and battle. Chan, however, doesn't seem to have any pretensions toward either of those. He deliberately makes himself (and one or two costars) look absolutely ridiculous from time to time, and a lot of his fights consist mostly of ducking behind objects and tossing them into the way of his enemies. His focus, above all else, is on the entertainment.

The movie's plot is threadbare simple. Chan is Keung, a young man on his first visit to America to attend the wedding of an uncle. He meets people, gets involved in a fight (of course), and ends up having to battle both a local street gang and the Mafia to save his friends, their store, and his own life. That's all there is to the plot, and it's all Chan needs to weave up some action.

This film will not convert anyone who doesn't already like action and chop- socky movies. The dialogue is horrendous, and the dubbing pathetic. And it's fun to see how unrealistically an Asian portrays American street gangs and cities while filming in Canada. I amused myself by trying to spot one single car less than 10 years old in the streets that were about to be torn apart by the gang war. Those are the bad things, and the stereotypical drawbacks to most kung-fu movies.

The good thing, as the promoters well know, is Chan. His athleticism is amazing. While he doesn't spend much time in blow-by-blow fights with his opponents, you've never seen a man run away so amazingly. He scales sheer walls, leaps and ducks and scrambles over, around, and through everything imaginable, and leaps off buildings where the camera shows you quite clearly that there's no net below. The amount of choreography to these scenes is mind-boggling, and Chan's stunt ability is unparalleled.

I get the impression that Chan is like a boy who's being allowed to play with bigger and better toys all the time. In this film, he even gets to drive a hovercraft around the city. And his fun is infectious; Rumble is entertaining. The humor is earthy and basic, but fun, even with the bad dubbing, and the stunts are eye-popping. But this movie should only be viewed by people who aren't bothered by lack of plot, loose threads, and painfully bad lines. Check it out when you're in the mood to laugh and shrug your shoulders at the unlikely fun on the screen.

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