I am a big fan of Jackie Chan, and that includes even the older Hong Kong movies that he was in prior to becoming a worldwide movie star. And "Rumble in Hong Kong" was made way, way before achieving fame, and it is painstakingly obvious that he was put on the DVD cover after achieving stardom and the video was transferred directly from VHS to DVD and put on the market.
The quality of this movie, I mean the picture, not the actual contents of the story, is amazingly poor. It is so clear that it has been transferred from VHS directly to DVD without any finishing touches or polishing up. The picture is grainy and lots of the times all of what was supposed to be on the screen wasn't even there; for example you'd see less than half a face or no face at all, and other such stupid flaws. A couple of times you even saw something that looked like the VHS tape was about to snap because the picture buckled and folded. It was just shameful to be witness to.
But it doesn't stop there, no. They had to release it as an English dubbed version, without the possibility to change audio and go for the original Cantonese language. Why? By all that is sacred to movies, why? English dubbing is the epitome of lameness. It is so bad and sounds like people weren't even putting any effort into it. They should have gone with releasing it with the original language track, as all movies should be.
As for the movie itself, well being shot in 1973 (2 years before I was even born), I assume that this was top notch action. Of course you have the mandatory halting dialogue and the overdone sound effects when people fight. The story reminded me somewhat of an episode of Kojak. A gang of thugs are terrorizing and bullying people around, and go to far as they kill a woman. Before dying, the woman hides a purse in the taxi that she died in, and now the gang wants the purse, going to extreme lengths to get their hands on it, bullying and terrorizing the taxi driver and his family.
Moving back to putting Jackie Chan on the DVD cover, it was done solely because of his fame and because he sells, though it does move to wonder, as he is not the lead role in "Rumble in Hong Kong". Despite this, then I found it actually quite a change of pace to watch Chan in a villain role for a change. And I noticed that some reviewer here on IMDb was whining about his big mole on the cheek, what? Are you kidding me? This is a movie. People assume roles. What is the big deal about adding a mole to the cheek of a character in a make-believe movie? What is next? Whining about hairy hobbit feet? Pointed elven ears? Small grey men from outer space? And for your information, I used to live in Hong Kong and there was a large number of people with big moles and imperfections of the skin resulting in an odd dark-blueish coloration of the skin. Whining about a mole in a movie, sheesh!
Sure, "Rumble in Hong Kong" is not the best of Jackie Chan movies, but it is part of his legacy, part of his movie career. And bear in mind that this movie was made back in 1973, so don't expect it to be up to date in this day and age. I enjoyed it, despite its flaws and age, and not only because of Jackie Chan, but because it is a piece of Hong Kong cinema.
