Rumble in the Bronx

Like all Jackie Chan films, this one works best as a rousing action film. From beginning to end, Rumble is filled with imaginative and breathtaking stunts (all done by Chan sans stuntman) and a succession of epic fight scenes that are hypnotic, exhilarating, masterfully choreographed and great fun. [23 Feb 1996, p.3]

Freed from the tiresome constraints of plot and character, Rumble in the Bronx is the distilled essence of action entertainment. [27 Feb 1996, p.D1]

For serenely rising above all the foolishness is Chan himself, a performer whose belief in broad and harmless fun gives his films a clear and present connection to the classic silent comedies to go along with its action fixation. For once a film's ad line has a whiff of truth about it: "No Fear. No Stuntman. No Equal." [23 Feb 1996, p.1]

Rumble in the Bronx never quite achieves the smack-you-around zest of Chan's Hong Kong pictures. Still, it's hard to dislike a movie with such a friendly sense of the preposterous.

The movie is disjointed and, at times, unintentionally funny, but its ineptitude is so good-natured that it makes a charming alternative to the mind-numbing professionalism of American action movies. [23 Feb 1996]

Filmed in Vancouver (which looks like nobody's idea of the Bronx), the film is a throwback to the hoary chop-socky conventions that gave Hong Kong cinema its shabby reputation.

An awkward hybrid of Asian and American film techniques. It's also an uninvolving story that casts Chan in the role of a fish out of water and gives him little opportunity to show his exuberant personality.

This movie is one of Jackie Chan's finest and funniest action comedies of all time. You get the insanely well choreographed martial arts action Jackie is known for plus some of the most ridiculously funny gags, bad dubbing, and location mismatches of any Jackie Chan film ever made.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Just pure Jackie Chan fun. Great stunts, fun comedy, awesome fighting, cheesy as hell. It's a blast. It perhaps feels a bit too american at times, but the Hong kong martial arts spirit is still there, even in the streets of New York (totally not Vancouver). Just sit back and enjoy.

The artistic medium of film is very subjective. Every audience member has a different set of criteria they use to measure their viewing experience. Not everyone shares the same set of criteria. If we did, what a bland and uninspired world this would be. What I Personally Liked About "Rumble in the Bronx": Let's face it. The action takes the cake in a film like this. Jackie Chan is known for hard-hitting, fast-paced sequences involving tight choreography and reflexes a cheetah would be proud to possess. Jackie was at the peak of his powers in this production and it shows. He is a greased lightning bolt streaking across the screen and demolishing everyone and everything that gets in his way. It doesn't hurt that Jackie did his own stunts as well, showing a dedication to his craft that few action masters could muster. Chan's enthusiasm is another infectious reason to enjoy this rollicking romp. It's obvious he loves being on screen, he loves entertaining, he loves going out with all guns blazing at all times. His happiness at being part of a movie such as this is one more separation from the dime-a-dozen action heroes we were subjected to during the late eighties/early nineties. One has to thank Jackie for freeing us from the muscle-bound style of action that had been so dominant in the United States at that time. What I Personally Disliked About "Rumble in the Bronx": From time to time, "Rumble" has a tendency to place too much emphasis on cultural stereotypes to try and enhance its humor. This is a mistake. It robs the film of some of its vitality by taking the easy road. In addition, the finale of the film has a kind of "look at me, see what I can do" vibe where the concept of over-the-top becomes par for the course. It just seems to collapse under its own weight. Naturally, cutting a quarter of an hour from the motion picture for its American release was also not a smart move. It just shows that American executives have no clue when it comes to releasing foreign pictures here in the States. Even in the mid-nineties, the sort of fan who would have appreciated this film the most would have been the one who wanted to see the unedited version, not the cut-and-dub we have here. My Overall Impression of "Rumble in the Bronx": It will never be mistaken for Shakespeare, but as a straight action yarn it is fairly solid entertainment. You could do a whole lot worse in the realm of martial arts movies than this.

The movie is very politically correct in the beginning. The story is stupid and simple, the characters are one-sided. The audio is bad and doesnt fit to the faces. Only the stunts and skills from Jackie Chan are impressive. I was disappointed although I wanted to like the movie