Rumble in the Bronx
Encyclopedia
Rumble in the Bronx is a 1995
Hong Kong films of 1995
A list of films produced in Hong Kong in 1995:.-1995:-External links:* * Hong Kong films of 1995 at...

 Hong Kong
Cinema of Hong Kong
The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan...

 martial arts
Martial arts film
Martial arts film is a film genre. A sub-genre of the action film, martial arts films contain numerous fights between characters, usually as the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often as a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently...

 action
Hong Kong action cinema
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. It combines elements from the action film, as codified by Hollywood, with Chinese storytelling and aesthetic traditions, to create a culturally distinctive form that nevertheless has a wide transcultural...

 comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 starring Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

 and Anita Mui
Anita Mui
Anita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...

. Released in the US in 1995, Rumble in the Bronx had a successful theater run, and brought Chan into the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mainstream. The film is set in the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

 area of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 but was filmed in and around Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

.

Plot

Ma Hon Keung (Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

), a Hong Kong cop comes to New York to attend the wedding of his Uncle Bill (Bill Tung
Bill Tung
Bill Tung Biu was a Hong Kong actor and horse racing commentator. Tung started off as a horse jockey with his family racing horse stable. He was then recruited to become a horse racing commentator. Due to his fame, he was invited to act in many movies from 1949 to 1996, many of them with Jackie...

) who introduces his new wife to him down at his supermarket, which he owns and is in the process of selling to Elaine (Anita Mui
Anita Mui
Anita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...

). Uncle Bill's friend, Steven Lo (Jamie Luk), loans him a vintage automobile for the wedding. Later that night, a street gang starts a motorcycle race near Uncle Bill's apartment. They are about to run over his friend's car until Keung jumps down and stops them. He soon starts a rivalry with the street gang when he drives them away from the supermarket that they were robbing and vandalizing. This starts a series of brawls in which the bikies try to corner Keung and finish him off. When a member of the street gang named Angelo (Garvin Cross
Garvin Cross
Garvin Cross, is an American stuntman and actor. He is best known for his role as Angelo in the 1995 martial arts film Rumble in the Bronx, starring Jackie Chan.-Career:...

) gets involved in an illegal diamond deal gone bad and steals the diamonds, the small-time gangsters become the victims of a much larger and more effective criminal syndicate led by White Tiger (Kris Lord). While running away with the diamonds, Angelo leaves them in a cushion, which is unknowingly used by Keung for the wheelchair of a disabled Chinese American boy named Danny (Morgan Lam), who is raised by his elder sister Nancy (Françoise Yip
Françoise Yip
Françoise Fong-Wa Yip is a Canadian actress.Yip was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was raised in Toronto. Her father is Chinese, and her mother is Québécoise. At an early age Yip began studying both piano and dance, but it was piano that she would excel at...

), a lingerie model/dancer who works in a seedy bar and is an associate/girlfriend of the bikies. Keung befriends Nancy and advises her to stay away from crime. When the gangsters see this, they chase Keung and Nancy. After failing to confront Keung, the bikies turn up at Elaine's supermarket and start vandalizing it, during which two of Angelo's men are captured by White Tiger's men, who turn up at the supermarket in search of Angelo. Angelo's colleagues are unaware of his diamond heist and one is executed in a tree-shredder; his remains are given back to the other gangster to show to his friends as a warning to return the multi-million dollar goods. In the meantime, Keung and Nancy go to bikies' shed after the latest supermarket attack, and Keung defeats them in another brawl, at which point the shredded remains are brought back.

Keung agrees to help the bikies' leader, Tony (Marc Akerstream
Marc Akerstream
Marc Akerstream was an American actor best known as Tony in the 1995 martial arts film Rumble in the Bronx, starring Jackie Chan. He was also a stuntman....

). Keung convinces the street gangsters to reform, then brings the big-time criminals to justice after another long-winded street battle. The syndicate and Keung work out the diamonds are in the boy's wheelchair, and the handover is botched after Nancy and Tony are held hostage by the syndicate; the diamonds are lost after the syndicate uses towtrucks to pull the supermarket apart and the diamonds are spilled as Keung is in the building and knocked over. A long battle occurs in the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

 after White Tiger's men hijack a hovercraft and are pursued by Keung and the New York Police Department. The hovercraft finally ends up running through the streets, causing much damage to property. Keung ends the chase by stealing a large sword from a museum and clamping it onto a sports car window and driving into the hovercraft
Hovercraft
A hovercraft is a craft capable of traveling over surfaces while supported by a cushion of slow moving, high-pressure air which is ejected against the surface below and contained within a "skirt." Although supported by air, a hovercraft is not considered an aircraft.Hovercraft are used throughout...

, shredding the rubber undercarriage and immobilising the vehicle and capturing the syndicate men. After shooting one of them non-fatally to force them to reveal White Tiger's location, Keung drives the hovercraft, with the rubber implausibly re-patched with tape, across town to a golf course where White Tiger is playing with subordinates. He runs them over and squashes them non-fatally into the ground. The film ends with White Tiger being squashed, his clothes ripped off his back, leaving him naked.

Cast

  • Jackie Chan
    Jackie Chan
    Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

     as Ma Hon Keung (馬漢強)
  • Anita Mui
    Anita Mui
    Anita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...

     as Elaine
  • Françoise Yip
    Françoise Yip
    Françoise Fong-Wa Yip is a Canadian actress.Yip was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was raised in Toronto. Her father is Chinese, and her mother is Québécoise. At an early age Yip began studying both piano and dance, but it was piano that she would excel at...

     as Nancy
  • Bill Tung
    Bill Tung
    Bill Tung Biu was a Hong Kong actor and horse racing commentator. Tung started off as a horse jockey with his family racing horse stable. He was then recruited to become a horse racing commentator. Due to his fame, he was invited to act in many movies from 1949 to 1996, many of them with Jackie...

     as Uncle Bill Ma (馬驃)
  • Marc Akerstream
    Marc Akerstream
    Marc Akerstream was an American actor best known as Tony in the 1995 martial arts film Rumble in the Bronx, starring Jackie Chan. He was also a stuntman....

     as Tony
  • Garvin Cross
    Garvin Cross
    Garvin Cross, is an American stuntman and actor. He is best known for his role as Angelo in the 1995 martial arts film Rumble in the Bronx, starring Jackie Chan.-Career:...

     as Angelo
  • Morgan Lam as Danny
  • Kris Lord as White Tiger
  • Carrie Cain Sparks as Whitney
  • Elliot Ngok
    Elliot Ngok
    Elliot Ngok Wah, better known as Yueh Hua, is a former Shaw Brothers actor and veteran TVB actor.-Career:Elly was born Leung Lok Wah in Shanghai, with native Cantonese roots. He immigrated to Hong Kong in 1962. He joined Shaw Brothers and started his acting career in 1965. His breakout film role...

     (Yueh Hua) as Wah, the Realtor (華) (uncredited)
  • Eddy Ko
    Eddy Ko
    Eddy Ko Hung is a Hong Kong television and film actor who has worked on the TV stations RTV , TVB and ATV. His birthname is Ho Yiu Sum . He adopted the name Ko Hung as a stage name...

     as Prospective market buyer
  • Emil Chau
    Wakin Chau
    Wakin Chau is a Hong Kong singer and actor. Chau's popularity has spread throughout Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and parts of Southeast Asia. He was known as Emil Chau through the 1980s and 1990s, and by 2000 he reverted to his given name Wakin...

     as Ice cream salesman
  • Alex To
    Alex To
    Alex To is a Hong Kong and Taiwan based singer and actor. He is the winner of the 4th annual New Talent Singing Awards in 1985. He has released numerous albums throughout his career and mainly has R&B influenced songs.-Early life and career:...

     as Ice cream customer
  • Richard Faraci as a syndicate gangster with a ponytail
  • Jamie Luk as Steven Lo
  • Chan Man Ching as Tony's Gang Member
  • Mars
    Mars (actor)
    Mars , born Cheung Wing Fat is a Hong Kong actor, action director, stuntman and martial artist. He is one of Jackie Chan's best friends.-Early life:...

     (stunt)
  • Colin Flora (stunt)

Box office

In Hong Kong, Rumble in the Bronx broke the box office record earning HK $56,911,136 making it the biggest film in Hong Kong at that time and one of Chan's biggest ever.

It was also Chan's North American breakthrough. Opening on 1,736 North American screens, it was number one at the box office in its opening weekend, grossing US $9,858,380 ($5,678 per screen). It finished its North American run with US $32,392,047.

Awards and nominations

  • 1996
    15th Hong Kong Film Awards
    Ceremony for the 15th Hong Kong Film Awards was held in 1996.-Best Film:-Best Director:-Best Screenplay:-Best Actor:-Best Actress:-Best Supporting Actor:-Best Supporting Actress:-Best New Performer:-Best Cinematography:...

     Hong Kong Film Awards
    • Winner: Best Action Choreography (Jackie Chan
      Jackie Chan
      Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

      , Stanley Tong
      Stanley Tong
      Stanley Tong is a film director from Hong Kong.According to IMDb , he customarily attempts stunts himself before asking actors to risk themselves...

      )
    • Nomination: Best Actor (Jackie Chan
      Jackie Chan
      Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

      )
    • Nomination: Best Actress (Anita Mui
      Anita Mui
      Anita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...

      )
    • Nomination: Best Film Editing (Peter Cheung)
    • Nomination: Best New Performer (Françoise Yip
      Françoise Yip
      Françoise Fong-Wa Yip is a Canadian actress.Yip was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was raised in Toronto. Her father is Chinese, and her mother is Québécoise. At an early age Yip began studying both piano and dance, but it was piano that she would excel at...

      )
    • Nomination: Best Picture (Barbie Tang)
    • Nomination: Best Supporting Actress (Françoise Yip
      Françoise Yip
      Françoise Fong-Wa Yip is a Canadian actress.Yip was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was raised in Toronto. Her father is Chinese, and her mother is Québécoise. At an early age Yip began studying both piano and dance, but it was piano that she would excel at...

      )

  • 1997 Key Art Awards
    • Winner: Best of Show – Audiovisual

For the "Ben Knows" comedy TV spot
  • 1996 MTV Movie Awards
    MTV Movie Awards
    The MTV Movie Awards is a film awards show presented annually on MTV . It also contains movie parodies that used official movie footage with hosts and other celebrities and music performances. The nominees are decided by producers and executives at MTV. Winners are decided online by the general...

    • Nomination: Best Fight (Jackie Chan
      Jackie Chan
      Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

      )

Injuries

During filming, Chan injured his leg while performing a stunt. He spent much of the remaining shooting time with one leg in a cast. When it came to the film's climax, the crew colored a sock to resemble the shoe on his good foot, which Chan wore over his cast. His foot still had not completely healed when he went on to shoot his next film, Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt (1995 film)
Thunderbolt is a 1995 Hong Kong action film, directed by Gordon Chan and starring Jackie Chan. In some early North American releases, it was known as Dead Heat....

(filmed the same year but released earlier).

The lead actress and several stunt doubles were also injured during the shooting of a motorcycle stunt, with several people suffering broken limbs and ankles.

New Line Cinema edit

New Line Cinema acquired the film for international distribution and commissioned a new music score and English dub (with participation from Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

). A scene of Chan on an airplane to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 was added to the opening credits. Two scenes added exclusively for this edit are Keung and Nancy escaping from the nightclub after the bikies spot them together, and White Tiger taking a golf shot before a subordinate approaches him with his phone. Neither of these scenes were in the original Hong Kong release.

In comparison to the Hong Kong version, 17 minutes of cuts were made, including:
  • Some more footage of Keung and Uncle Bill in the car talking about the supermarket.
  • A scene in which two bikie gang members extort some money, and then steal some items from beside the cash register.
  • A scene where Uncle Bill and his wife sing a lament in Chinese at their wedding. This scene is restored in the US cable version.
  • Keung doing more exercises before he rolls into a headstand.
  • A lecture by Keung on martial arts after fighting off the biker gang.
  • An entire scene in the morning after the night of the alley ambush by the bikies, where Keung travels to a market to find it has been robbed by some youths. Simultaneously, the two gangsters return to extort money, only to be scared off by Keung. Immediately after, the entire biker gang show up but Keung is intimidated and instead calls the police. This scene is restored in the US cable version.
  • Some escapism moves during the fight with the biker gang at their turf.
  • On the car-park roof top, Keung begs for someone's help, but is scared away.
  • More angles of the car-park jump are shown.
  • The long haired syndicate thug asking Keung if he has seen any diamonds.
  • Two policemen waiting for Angelo in their car as he attempts to retrieve the diamonds.
  • A full scene after one of Angelo's men is murdered by a syndicate using a tree-shredder, where Keung and Nancy return to the apartment with shopping. A displeased Elaine emerges and describes what happened to the store.
  • Slightly more footage of Keung trying to bargain about the diamonds with the gang in the boathouse.


It has been reported that the American Movie Channel (AMC) aired some of these scenes during their broadcast of the film.

The new soundtrack replaced Chan's song over the closing credits
Closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...

 with the song "Kung Fu
Kung Fu (song)
"Kung Fu" is a song by Ash, released as the first single from their album 1977 on 20 March 1995 - as a CD single, limited edition 7”, and standard 7” vinyl....

" by the band Ash
Ash (band)
Ash are an alternative rock band that formed in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland in 1992. The band has sold 8 million albums worldwide.-Band beginning, Trailer and 1977 :...

, the lyrics of which mention Jackie Chan, as well as other key figures from Hong Kong cinema.

Media

The majority of DVD versions of the film contain the heavily edited US New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...

 cut, with the relevant dubs created for each market. However, other versions exist, which are closer to the original theatrical release.

Warner

  • A DVD was produced by Warner Brothers HK for Hong Kong and South Korea. This contains the New Line Cinema version with additional abridged Cantonese and Mandarin soundtracks. It has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, but includes no English subtitles.

  • Warner Home Video also released a DVD in Japan of the Hong Kong version. This version contains the Hong Kong cut of the film. The dialogue is completely undubbed in a mono 2.0. However, its aspect ratio is cropped to 1.85:1 and contains no English subtitles.

  • In Hong Kong, a VCD
    VCD
    VCD is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, as described below:* VCD Athletic, semi-professional football team* Video CD* Voice command device* Value change dump * Vocal cord dysfunction* Visual Communication and Design...

     containing the Hong Kong version in Cantonese, with newly generated English and Chinese subtitles was also released. It's 2.35:1.

Thakral/Chinastar

It appears that a joint-distribution deal was made, with Thakral releasing the film in China, and Chinastar releasing it in Hong Kong. This version contains no credits, not even the film title, but is otherwise the Hong Kong version. There are no English subtitles and the ratio is roughly 2.10:1.

Speedy

Malaysian distributor Speedy released a VCD featuring the Cantonese/English soundtrack. The subtitles are in three languages – English, Chinese and Malaysian. In comparison to the Hong Kong version, it cuts footage of strong language and offensive gestures. Unlike the Hong Kong release, during a scene in which Angelo insults Keung in the car-park, he keeps his trousers up. For some dialogue scenes, it actually dubs the normally English-responding characters into Cantonese. Although the correct ratio is 2:35:1, it is distorted into roughly 1:60:1.

Funny

The film had three separate DVD releases by Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

ese distributor Funny. Two of these DVDs feature the Taiwanese Mandarin-dubbed version with embedded subtitles. One of these contains a Dolby 5.1 soundtrack only, whilst the other contains both Dolby and DTS soundtracks. The third release is a double-sided disc, featuring the Taiwanese Mandarin dub on one side and the English-dubbed New Line Cinema version on the other. Despite containing a dubbed soundtrack, these DVDs are the only releases to contain English subtitles for a Chinese version. All three are presented in 2.35:1.

4 Film Favorites

  • Another DVD was released on the DVD 4 films favorites. Part of the 4 Film Favorites: Martial Arts collection. The film is exactly like the New Line Cinema
    New Line Cinema
    New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...

     but put on the other side of the disc. The film s also attached to, The Corruptor
    The Corruptor
    The Corruptor is a 1999 American action thriller film directed by James Foley, and starring Chow Yun-fat and Mark Wahlberg.-Plot:NYPD Lieutenant Nick Chen is one of New York City's police officers and is head of the Asian Gang Unit...

    , Showdown in Little Tokyo
    Showdown in Little Tokyo
    Showdown in Little Tokyo is a 1991 action film. It features Brandon Lee in his first American film role, starring alongside Dolph Lundgren. Set in Los Angeles, California, two police officers attempt to take down a new and deadly Japanese drug gang...

     and Bloodsport.

Critical reception

When released in North America, Rumble in the Bronx received generally good reviews, as most critics were happy that a Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

 film was finally getting a wide theatrical release in North America. The film currently has a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, and 81% among the 'Cream of the Crop.' Most critics agreed that the plot and acting were lacking, but the action, stunts, and Chan's charm made up for it.

Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

's review for the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...

was:
"Any attempt to defend this movie on rational grounds is futile. Don't tell me about the plot and the dialogue. Don't dwell on the acting. The whole point is Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...

– and, like Astaire and Rogers, he does what he does better than anybody. There is a physical confidence, a grace, an elegance to the way he moves. There is humor to the choreography of the fights (which are never too gruesome).

He's having fun. If we allow ourselves to get in the right frame of mind, so are we.
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