Jackie Chan dans le Bronx

"Rumble in the Bronx" is one of Jackie Chan's better movies; it features impressive stunt work and nicely choreographed fight sequences. This is a true 'R' rated picture as it is full of violence which could be seen as a negative. The villains are a now somewhat silly and dated 90's punk gang. But the film is the right length -- not too long and has near constant action. If the human aspects of the story were developed a little more it would have been even better. As it stands now though it is still one of the better action films out there and worthy of watching just to see the ambitious stunt work. I rate it a 7/10.

I've read reviews from a number of people who were fans of Jackie Chan before he was well known in the west, that express disappointment that Rumble in the Bronx is the film that finally made Chan a household name in America, because they feel the film is quite a come-down from the "Police Story" films that formed the main link between Chan and his past before making this film.

I must strongly disagree. Yes - the Anglo actors aren't very good; the plot is silly at times; the dialog is weak, some of the characters are unbelievable.

But there's seems no question that the stunt-work is excellent, and the fight scenes are excellent - these really form the reason for making the film in the first place.

Furthermore, I think that, of all the protagonists he's played, Chan's character here is the closest to being a true hero of the highest caliber - incorruptible, unstoppable, compassionate, smart - if all our heroes were like this, this would be a different world; if we were all like this, it would be heaven.

And I'm not getting all that ironic here - I sincerely mean that Chan returns a kind of virtuous character to the silver screen, that hasn't been seen for a very long time.

Consequently, despite occasional violence, I would not stop children from seeing this film - I would encourage them to do so. They can learn a lot about ethics and character from watching this film - and that is actually quite remarkable, to be able to say that of a Martial Arts film.

Well here we go once again with the undisputed king of action comedy. The one and only Jackie Chan. While this is nowhere near Chan's best movie we can be grateful for the fact that this is the film that finally gave Chan his much deserved break in the USA. This is the story on Chan's character Keung who comes to the Bronx for his uncle's wedding and ends up caught up in a series of events that involve biker gangs, and diamond robbers. But really none of this matters this is just an excuse for Jackie to show of his amazing action skills (in the fight scenes which he also choreographed), and this he does to his usual amazing standards. There seems to be more edits in the fight scenes that is normal for Jackie but I suspect this might be down to one of two things. One making the film more palatable for a western audience. Or two that Jackie broke his ankle in the filming of this movie. Still tell me the last time you saw a western movie star leap from a roof on to the fire escape of the next building!!! Truly amazing stuff. On the down side the western characters and acting are very wooden but hey just enjoy Chan and hopefully then go seek out his Hong Kong movies.

I'd guess you'd have to call 'Rumble in the Bronx' an extreme example of a guilty pleasure. Though back in the 1990s, it was not my first introduction to Jackie Chan (the inferior 'Supercop' was) it was the one that got me hooked on his work. All the way through this viewing – the first in many years, the word "silly" kept popping up in my mind. It's dialogue, acting, stereotypes and shoddy cop work was so hilariously bad, I could only think this had to be written by someone who's only contact with the U.S.A. involves watching old 1970s cop hour-long dramas. And while some scenes were actually funny (SEE: the wrench threat) some were downright unintentionally funny (SEE: the toddler-toss and the entire closing on the golf course.) Leaving all that negative behind, it was an extreme joy watching Chan perform his own stunts in many, many inventive ways while simultaneously creating a very human and good-hearted character. The stunts were simply amazing and if one were to watch today for the first time, they need to know: he did them all himself, without a green screens, cables, etc. As arrogant as Chan is – I've read his biography, it's dripping with arrogance, he does have great gifts in originality, showmanship, pride in his work and making sure he never uses traditional American trickery/stunts. (This changes later in his work, when he was forced and got older, but this work and ones around it were all pure Chan.) Synopsis: Good-natured nephew Chan visits NYC and gets thrown in extraordinary circumstances: fighting both gangs and mob bosses while helping 2 women, his Uncle and a handicapped child. All that's irrelevant; what matters is once the action starts, it never lets up. And with an open-mind, what a fun rumble you'll have.

Side Note: Wow.. not only was it painful for all the actors to get hurt during production (not to mention the roughly 16 dozen vehicles) it was also gut wrenching to watch the closing credits that showed mostly the unintentional crashes, broken bones, etc. You really have to hand it to the devotion of the crew, cast and Chan. Definitely Chan. My comments about his arrogance does not mean I don't admire the man, especially his extremely poor and underprivileged beginnings to the entertainer he became. He's one of the very few actors/action stars that no matter how incredibly silly his movies look to me – it has to be a culture thing, it's always a rush to see how long his fight scenes last, how inventive he becomes and simply how exciting they are.

This is basically the movie that introduced Jackie Chan to Hollywood and the world to Jackie Chan. It brought the crazy and amazing action and fight sequences from Chan's into the western world of film-making. It makes this movie something fresh and unique, or at least for its time it was. I remember first seeing this movie in the mid-'90's, just before the time it was released as a rental movie. My brother was working in a video-store and had to take a few new video's home with him in order to decide whether or not the video-store should buy this movie for rental purposes. In those days this movie was really something fun and spectacular to watch and shortly afterward Jackie Chan also became a real big and popular movie-star. Way more popular and appreciated as he is now days.

What really makes this movie is its action. It's never anything too big, also since the movie is made obviously with a fairly low budget but it's very entertaining and amazing at the same time. Amazing, since obviously no harnesses or cables were used for the fight sequences and stunts. It also resulted in lots of broken bones and other injuries during the production but the end result for the movie is really something great and spectacular looking and is brought very entertainingly by Jackie Chan and director Stanley Tong, who both directed the action sequences together. You should see this movie just purely for its entertaining action, since everything else about the movie is actually quite bad to be honest. It might very well be the Jackie Chan movie with the very best action in it.

The movie is a very entertaining one to watch that gets better as it progresses. It's as if the in the first halve tried to be too serious with its approach but in the second halve the gloves are off and the movie becomes truly ridiculously over-the-top and fun at the same time. The best example of this is perhaps the finale sequence in which Chan and his happy friends get the main bad guy with an hovercraft. It's a totally pointless and completely ridicules and also short, rushed done sequence but because of that it at the same time works out very hilarious. I'm still looking for a movie with a better use of the hovercraft than this one!

It's hard to really judge the acting in the movie, since all of the actors were dubbed, even the American actors. This gives the movie an even more ridicules feeling and also makes the acting seem as something completely horrible and over-the-top.

The movie its story often makes lots of crazy jumps and it perhaps even feel as two totally different scripts that were blend in with each other, with as a result that not everything always makes a whole lot of sense and continuity and character treatments are messy. It perhaps almost seems as if the story was mainly purely there to let the movie feature as many and crazy stunts and fight sequences as possible.

The movie is most of the time looking and definitely feeling as a B-movie but in a good way. It's made as an entertaining movie and at entertaining this movie does simply not fail.

As long as you don't pay any attention to the story or logical and it's acting or anything else like it, you'll simply enjoy this movie for the entertainment that it brings, with mainly it's over-the-top but absolutely amazing action sequences.

7/10

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