Rush Hour (1998)

What do you do if you take the fastest hands in the east and the biggest mouth in the west? My answer is simply this: You put them together, mixing punches with punch lines, in Director Brett Ratner’s (The Family Man, Red Dragon, and X-Men: The Last Stand) martial arts buddy-action-comedy RUSH HOUR. Distributed by New Line Cinema and released in 1998, the film tells the story of two mismatched cops from different worlds and with nothing in common: top Hong Kong Detective Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) and big-mouthed, work alone, Los Angeles Police Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker), who reluctantly team up to catch a group of criminals who kidnap the daughter of a Chinese Consul and demand a ransom of $50 million – if they don’t kill each other first. The film also stars Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton) as British Police Commander Thomas Griffin, Philip Baker Hall (Hard Eight) as L.A.P.D. Captain William Diel, Mark Rolston (The Departed) as Special FBI Agent in Charge Warren Russ, Tzi Ma (Rapid Fire) as Chinese Consul Solon Han, Rex Linn (TV’s CSI: Miami) as FBI Agent Dan Whitney, Ken Leung (Saw) as Chinese criminal Sang, Clifton Powell (Next Friday) as Luke, John Hawkes (The Perfect Storm) as Stucky, with Chris Penn (Reservoir Dogs) as Clive Cod, and Elizabeth Peña (Transamerica) as L.A.P.D. Detective Tania Johnson. I was ten years old and was in the fifth grade when this film came out that fall and I never got the chance to see it in the theaters. I finally did seeing it once when my father rented it on VHS the following spring, but when it was finally broadcast on network television during the time RUSH HOUR 2 was released, I started to really like this movie and would watch it over and over again on TV till I finally added to my DVD collection. My favorite scene would have to be the fight scene at the Foo-Chow Restaurant. As a fan of Jackie Chan, Ratner really wanted to do a film with him and the thought the script for RUSH HOUR was the perfect choice. And Tucker had previously worked with Ratner, who are also life-long friends, on 1997’s MONEY TALKS. According to Ratner, this was Jackie Chan’s first English speaking role that did not involve any kind of dubbing that what Chan did in his other movies from Hong Kong. Filmed in Los Angeles, California and some in Hong Kong, China from December 1st, 1997 to February 17th, 1998 with a budget of $33,000,000, RUSH HOUR opened at #1 at the box office, with a weekend gross of $33,001,803 when it was released on September 18th, 1998, and later grossed over $141,186,864 worldwide. Before the film was placed at #7 of the top grossing films of 1998, it gained relatively positive reviews from critics, such as Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert giving it Two Thumbs Up and many other critics praised Chris Tucker for his comical acts in the film and how he and Chan formed an effective comic duo. Their performances earned them both 1999 MTV and Blockbuster Movie Awards for Best On-Screen Duo and Favorite Duo. With the success of RUSH HOUR, The film went on to spoil in two hit sequels: 2001’s Rush Hour 2, earning $226,164,286 domestically, and 2007’s Rush Hour 3, which earned $140,125,968 domestically. “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth” when I say RUSH HOUR is one of the greatest action comedies of all time? And if you haven’t seen it, I definitely recommend it.