Rush Hour 2

Rush Hour 2
File:Rush Hour 2 poster.jpg
Directed by	Brett Ratner
Written by	Screenplay Jeff Nathanson Original Story Ross LaManna
Produced by	Roger Birnbaum Jonathan Glickman Arthur Sarkissian Jay Stern
Starring	Jackie Chan Chris Tucker John Lone Alan King Roselyn Sánchez Harris Yulin Zhang Ziyi
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Edited by	Mark Helfrich Robert K. Lambert
Music by	Lalo Schifrin Nile Rodgers Ira Hearshen
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release dates	August 3, 2001
Running time	90 min.
Countries	United States Hong Kong
Languages	English Mandarin Cantonese
Budget	US$ 90 million
Box office	US$ 347,325,802

Rush Hour 2 is a 2001 martial arts/buddy cop film. This is the second installment in the Rush Hour film series. A sequel to the 1998 film Rush Hour, the film stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker who respectively reprise their roles as Inspector Lee and Los Angeles police detective James Carter. The film finds Carter and Lee embroiled in a counterfeit scam involving the Triads.

Rush Hour 2 was released August 3, 2001 and grossed $347,325,802 at the world-wide box-office, becoming the 11th top grossing film of 2001 worldwide, and the highest-grossing martial arts film of all time.

Plot

L.A.P.D. Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) is on vacation in Hong Kong, visiting his good friend Hong Kong Police Force Chief Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan). Carter is interested in having a good time; however, soon after he arrives, a bomb explodes in the American Embassy. Inspector Lee is assigned to the case, which becomes personal when it is discovered that it somehow involves Ricky Tan (John Lone), his late police officer father's former partner. Tan, who was suspected, but never proven, of having a role in Lee's father's death, is now a leader of the Triads.

The United States Secret Service, led by Agent Sterling (Harris Yulin), and the Hong Kong Police Force soon get into a fight over the jurisdiction of the case. Sterling believes Ricky Tan is a minor player in a larger conspiracy and wants him left alone so he will lead them to the people in charge. Lee, believing Tan is actually the head of the operation, learns that Tan will be attending a dinner party on his yacht. Tan scolds his underling, Hu Li (Zhang Ziyi), who then leaves as Lee and Carter confront Tan. Tan claims that someone is trying to frame him. Hu Li suddenly appears and shoots Ricky Tan, and he falls off the boat. In the ensuing chaos, Hu Li escapes, and an angry Sterling holds Lee responsible for Tan's death, and orders him off the case. Carter is ordered to be flown back to Los Angeles for involving himself. However, Lee and Carter return to Los Angeles together, seemingly motivated by their desire to bring justice and meaning for their respective father's deaths in the line of duty.

On the plane, Carter tells Lee that every case has a rich white man behind it, and that the man is Steven Reign (Alan King), a Los Angeles hotel billionaire. Carter says that he saw Reign on Tan's boat and that his calm demeanor during the shooting was suspicious. They set up camp outside the Reign Towers, pointing out a sexy Secret Service agent named Isabella Molina (Roselyn Sánchez), who Carter met and tried to woo on Ricky Tan's yacht. After Lee watches Molina undress, and a few misunderstandings, Molina tells the two men that she is undercover, looking into Reign's money laundering of US$ 100 million dollars in superbills (high grade counterfeit US$ 100 bills).

Lee and Carter pay a visit to Kenny (Don Cheadle), an ex-con known to Carter who runs an illegal gambling parlor frequented by Asian criminals in the back room of his Chinese restaurant. He tells them that a usually broke customer recently came in to his establishment with a suspicious amount of hundred-dollar bills. Carter checks them out and confirms that they are Reign's counterfeits. They trace the money back to a bank friendly to the Triads, who are waiting for them and knock the two cops unconscious, with Molina looking on. Then they depart for Las Vegas. Lee and Carter wake up inside one of the Triads' trucks and escape. After finding out where they are, they realize that Reign is laundering the $100 million through the new Red Dragon Casino.

At the Red Dragon, Lee and Carter split up. Carter makes a big commotion and distracts the security forces while Lee runs into Molina. After convincing Lee she did not sell them out, he attempts to infiltrate the back area to find the engraving plates (which were used to make the counterfeit money). However, Hu Li captures Lee, places a small bomb in his mouth, and gags him. She then takes him up to the penthouse, where it is revealed that Ricky Tan faked his death and, as Lee suspected, is in charge of the operation. After a few words, he departs, leaving Hu Li to do whatever she wants.

Molina then takes out a gun, reveals herself as a Secret Service agent and attempts to arrest Hu Li. In the chaos that follows, Hu Li kicks Lee out of a window and he falls out onto the casino floor. Molina and Hu Li then fight, and Molina sweeps the trigger for Lee's bomb out onto the casino floor. Hu Li finally manages to gain the upper hand and shoots Molina in the arm before jumping out onto the casino floor. After a frantic search, Carter and Lee end up together. Carter starts pulling the tape off of Lee's mouth. Lee manages to spit the bomb out seconds before Hu Li finds the trigger and detonates it. Carter then fights Hu Li while Lee heads to the penthouse to prevent Tan from escaping with the plates.

In the penthouse, Reign opens the safe and takes the plates, running into Tan as he leaves. After Reign announces he is cutting their deal short and keeping the plates, Tan stabs him with a knife, killing him. Lee arrives and confronts Tan, taking a gun from Reign's body. Carter appears, having triumphantly (and accidentally) knocked Hu Li out. After a tense standoff, where Tan admits he killed Lee's father, Lee knocks the gun away in Carter's direction. As Tan manages to retrieve it and is only seconds away from shooting Carter, Lee kicks Tan out of the window and he tumbles to his death. Hu Li then enters, holding a time bomb. Lee and Carter leap out of the window just as the bomb goes off, sliding on decoration wires with their jackets. The wires snap, and they swing into a sign for the casino. Their momentum swings them into the path of oncoming traffic. Through Lee's nimble skill and Carter's dumb luck, they narrowly escape being hit by three successive trucks.

Later, at the airport, Sterling thanks Lee for his work on the case. Molina says she would like to tell Lee something, and proceeds to kiss him for a short time, an event witnessed from afar by Carter. Lee and Carter plan to go their separate ways, Carter to Los Angeles and Lee to Hong Kong. After Isabella heads for her flight, Lee and Carter say one last goodbye. Lee then gives Carter, who at first graciously declines, his father's police badge, stating that he can finally "let it go." In return, Carter gives Lee $10,000 that he won from gambling at Caesars Palace. Lee is more critical in his refusal of the money, but Carter is able to persuade Lee to take the money. After, Lee reveals that he has always wanted to go to Madison Square Garden and watch a New York Knicks basketball game. Carter tells Lee he could go for one more vacation and the two of them decide to take another vacation in the Big Apple, dancing off to Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough".

Cast

• Jackie Chan as Chief Inspector Lee
• Chris Tucker as Detective James Carter
• Roselyn Sánchez as Secret Service Agent Isabella Molina
• John Lone as Ricky Tan
• Alan King as Steven Reign
• Harris Yulin as Secret Service Agent Sterling
• Zhang Ziyi as Hu Li

Production

• The time gap between Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour could conceivably be as short as 4 days. At the end of the first film, Detective Carter and Inspector Lee board a 15-hour flight To Hong Kong for a holiday and at the beginning of Rush Hour 2, Carter states "I've been in Hong Kong for 3 days and all we've done is run your cases". However, director Brett Ratner has stated that the events of Rush Hour 2 were probably Carter and Lee's second or third trip to Hong Kong.
• In an interview, Director Brett Ratner admitted that the first part of the karaoke scene with Chris Tucker was not supposed to be filmed. Chris Tucker refused to act like Michael Jackson with the cameras running. During takes, he went up as entertainment for everyone. Secretly, Brett Ratner told the cameramen to film it but to not let Tucker notice them.
• On an episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Chris Tucker said that while he was filming this movie in Hong Kong, many locals mistook him for NBA star Kobe Bryant. In the film, while Chris Tucker's character is running up the stairs, the old woman shouts "Move out of the way, Kobe" to him. However, in the DVD audio commentary, Director Brett Ratner states that main writer Jeff Nathanson came up with that line shortly before the filming of that scene.
• The mural on the wall of the Heaven on Earth Massage Parlor was copied from one in Scarface, which Harris Yulin and Brett Ratner appeared in.
• The scene where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are running down the street naked in Hong Kong was an actual take; production could not block the street off for the shoot.
• The scene where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker run around naked in the streets was inspired by a scene in The Accidental Spy (2001) which Jackie Chan made before this movie. Director Brett Ratner saw the film and decided to include a similar scene in Rush Hour 2 (2001).
• The girl-picking scene came from the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon (1973), which Jackie Chan appeared in.
• On the DVD release of the film, a deleted scene featured Philip Baker Hall reprising his role of Captain Diel from the first film. Carter speaks with the Captain about his stay in Hong Kong and his involvement in the Triad case. Director Brett Ratner states in the DVD audio commentary that while he would have loved to include the scene in the final cut (essentially giving Hall a cameo appearance), it did not advance the plot and was left out.
• During the boat party that Ricky Tan holds, the song "Tian Mi Mi" can be heard playing in the background. The same song was used in Year of the Dragon (1985), a film which also co-starred John Lone.
• Seasickness helped Roselyn Sánchez feign a lack of enthusiasm for Chris Tucker's advances in the yacht sequence.
• When Carter asks who was dead, Lee yells "You." Carter asks "Detective Yu?" Lee says "No, you." Carter says "Who?" Lee then says "Don't you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" That is a direct reference to the first movie.
• When Chris Tucker is saying that Asians always panic and points out Godzilla films as a reference, he shouts "Hayaku! Hayaku!" This is actually Japanese, and it means "Faster! Faster!"
• The scene where Carter gets the kosher meal was originally scripted to have Carter ask if Lee "want some of my gefilte fish?" after the stewardess left. But Chris Tucker couldn't pronounce "gefilte", so the scene never made the final cut (outtakes of this scene are in the end credits). Chris was finally able to pronounce the word in Rush Hour 3.
• Don Cheadle only agreed to appear in this movie under two circumstances: he gets to speak Chinese and pick a fight with Jackie Chan.
• In the scene where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker went inside the business suite, Ernie Reyes, Jr. appeared in a cameo as the worker who was chased by Chan and Tucker.
• Jeremy Piven made a cameo appearance in Rush Hour 2 as a Versace salesman. Like Don Cheadle, he was from Family Man (2000), a movie that was also directed by Brett Ratner.
• The Red Dragon Casino in Las Vegas owned by Ricky Tan (John Lone) and Steven Reign (Alan King) was actually the Desert Inn hotel and casino. There were red lights shined at the hotel to make it a scarlet color. Following the closure of the 50 year old Las Vegas Strip property in August 2000 by new owner Steve Wynn, the Rush Hour 2 production moved in and redesigned parts of the property as a Chinese themed casino/hotel for the movie. Shortly after the movie wrapped production in Las Vegas, the Desert Inn was demolished on October 23, 2001 to make way for the new $2.7 billion dollar Wynn Las Vegas resort. Red Dragon is also the name of a movie that Brett Ratner directed months after Rush Hour 2, as well as the name of a real casino in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, USA.
• The fake cash used in the movie said "In Dog We Trust". Even so, some of it "escaped" from the set and eventually ended up in a few casinos in Las Vegas.
• Jackie Chan's favorite number is 32. The gangster's car has a license plate of 32 and when Lee spits the grenade onto the roulette table it lands on 32 when it explodes.
• Chris Tucker ad-libbed many different versions of his short speech to Hu Li at the end of their fight. Director Brett Ratner felt the speech was not working and told Chris Tucker to call her a "bitch". Chris Tucker refused to say the word and it took hours of convincing by Director Brett Ratner before Chris Tucker finally agreed.
• During the filming of the stunt where Lee and Carter jump from the top window of the Red Dragon hotel then slide down the wires of Chinese Lanterns, a real (i.e. not part of the movie) car chase took place on/through the set. Apparently, a carload of drunken tourists (the set was in Las Vegas) got into an altercation with a taxi driver, and the two cars began a chase that ran down the strip and onto the set, narrowly missing crew members, extras and an enormous crane which held a camera and crew. Fortunately no one was injured; the driver and passengers of the taxi were detained by police.
• Zhang Ziyi only speaks three words of English in the film, two of which being her famous line "Some apple?", as she did not know the language at the time of filming. Jackie Chan served as her translator on the set. In addition to her spoken lines, she is seen mouthing "Here's your package. You're welcome." while Lee and Carter are spying on Molina through the windows from the neighboring tower.
• Zhang Ziyi's character name, "Hu Li", means "fox." Her character was originally written for a man.
• The first two films in the Rush Hour series begin in Hong Kong and end in a United States airport.
• The beginning shot is a direct reference to the beginning of Predator 2.

Cultural references

In the 2008 film Be Kind Rewind, Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) remake their own version of this film, because Jerry erased all the VHS tapes at their video store.

Box office

Rush Hour 2 opened on August 3, 2001 in 3,118 North American theatres, and it grossed $67,408,222.87 USD ($21,619 per screen) in its opening weekend. It ended its run with $226,164,286.92 USD, making it the fourth highest-grossing movie of 2001 domestically, and the highest-grossing martial arts film of all time, excluding Kung-Fu Panda in 2008, because it is an animated movie whereas Rush Hour 2 is live action.

The film's total worldwide box office take was $347,325,802 USD, making it the 11th highest-grossing movie of 2001 worldwide.

Awards and Nominations

Rush Hour 2 earned a total of 27 award nominations and 10 wins, including an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight, a Teen Choice Award for Film-Choice Actor, Comedy, and 3 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Movie Actor for Tucker, Favorite Male Action Hero for Chan, and Favorite Movie.

Sequel

Because of development hell, Rush Hour 3 was not released until August 10, 2007—six years after Rush Hour 2. Rush Hour 3 did not receive the critical and commercial acclaim of its predecessors. A fourth installment in the series is in negotiations, however, and reportedly may be set in Moscow.

Soundtrack

Main article: Rush Hour 2 (soundtrack)

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on July 31, 2001 by Def Jam Recordings. It peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200 and #11 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

See also

• Jackie Chan filmography

External links

• Rush Hour 2 at IMDb
• Rush Hour 2 at AllMovie
• Rush Hour 2 at Rotten Tomatoes
• Rush Hour 2 at Metacritic