Rush Hour 

Rush Hour is an action, comedy, buddy cop movie that was released in 1998. It was directed by Brett Ranter, with writing by Ross LaManna and Jim Kouf, music by Lalo Schifin and was produced by Roger Birnbaun, Jonathan Glickman and Arthur Sarkissian. Members of the cast include Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Ken Leung, Tom Wilkison and Tzi Ma. 

Warning this review will contain spoilers, if you have not seen this movie, I recommend it as it is a very entertaining flick. 

Story Summary   

The story revolves around detective Lee of the Hong Kong Police force with some seriously good martial arts fighting skills, and LAPD detective James Carter a confident and very loudmouth cop. They are brought from two different counties where they must work together in order to rescue Soo Yung the daughter of the Chinese consul Solon Han, who has recently been kidnapped by the Infamous crime lord Juntao. Juntao threatens to kill Han’s daughter unless a large ransom is paid, (This is also seen as payback against Han for sending Lee to bust up his criminal operations in Hong Kong). At first Carter tries to keep Lee away from the investigation so he can try and solve the crime by himself, however after some major bonding time which included a great dance scene to the song “war” the two decided that working together is the only way to save Soo Yung.  

Later on, they come to a restaurant that Juntao is hold up in, it there that we learn the shocking identity of the crime lord, that is none other than Thomas Griffin (The British Police Commander and close friend of Solon Han) When he finds out about both Lee and Carter, he has his right-hand man Sang Calibri Bold stay behind to kill them. Fortunately, they both made it out unharmed, however Juntao then raised the ransom to 70 million dollars as punishment for the two cops trying to track him down. 

For their off-duty actions Lee was ordered back to Hong Kong and Carter was taken off the case. But Carter, (with the way of words he has) manages to convince Lee that they are the only ones who can stop Juntao. (Also did a forget to mention he snuck onto the plan in order to do the convincing). They both soon find out that Griffin is Juntao. In the final battle they are able to rescue Soo Yung and disarm the bomb strapped to her chest, Carter subdues Sang and Griffins is taken into custardy. As a reward for saving his daughter Han sends both Lee and Carter on a well-earned holiday to Hong Kong, Carter is also offered an FBI place, but he rejects the offer as he wishes to remain in LAPD. The movie ends with them both on the flight to Hong Kong and Lee closes the movie with a sing song of “WAR”. 

Thoughts and Feelings 

This was a brilliant movie. One example of this was thanks to Jackie Chan and his amazing marital arts fighting scenes. This was great because it made the fight scenes more entertaining and who doesn’t love a bit of good old marital arts fighting, an example of these fight scenes was when Lee broke into the US embassy, and he thought against the people who he was supposed to be helping (although the embassy didn’t know at first that he was the man Han sent for, so we’ll let Lee of the hock there). Chris Tucker’s James carter was also a brilliant addiction to the movie because he’s loudmouth attitude made the movie extremely funny and amusing. 

I also thought that the villain reveal was great as well, this was because Griffin revealed that he sees himself as a collector of priceless object. By using his identity of Juntao and his hold over Hong Kong he could smuggle as many Chinese artifacts he wanted out of the country. But when Lee and Han ruined his operations and took back all the artifacts, (that he felt belong to him) Griffin made a plan to make them all pay him back for everything they took.  

I also really liked the use of the song War by Edwin Starr. This was good because not only is it a great song to listen too it was also a great song for Lee and Carter to dance to. Also, it was fitting that this song be the ending number.  

Overall, I thought this was a great Buddy cop movie and again if anyone hasn’t seen this movie, please do watch it because it is so good.