THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996 TAG: 9602240046
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
MARTIAL ARTS in the movies have been in sore need of a big broad wink, not higher, tougher kicks.
Jackie Chan, the Hong Kong star, does just that in the delightfully cornball, relentlessly campy ``Rumble in the Bronx.'' Even the title is a laugh. There hasn't been a good rumble since the the Jets took on the Sharks in ``West Side Story.''
Even though Chan has been making movies for more than two decades, and is a huge star everywhere else around the world, he has found it easier to break through walls than to crack the U.S. market.
In ``Rumble,'' his 39th outing, he brings a boyish, Everyman charm to his terrific action scenes. But, given its terrible dubbing and ridiculous plot, the film hints that it shouldn't be taken seriously.
The mop-topped star plays a Hong Kong cop who comes to America for his uncle's wedding. The Bronx, with snow-topped mountains in the background and an azure-colored harbor in the foreground, never looked so good. Actually, the producers make little effort to hide the fact that film was made in Vancouver, British Columbia. Even the few establishing scenes to suggest New York were shot in Brooklyn or Chinatown.
When uncle sells his prosperous grocery store and runs off on his honeymoon, Jackie agrees to stay around and help the pretty new owner. He runs afoul of a motorcycle gang when he stops the punks from mauling his uncle's stretch limo. The local moll is a stripper by night, but she's really a good girl with a disabled little brother who becomes Chan's best friend.
The plot almost gets too murky when the arch-villain, White Tiger, tries to retrieve a bag of jewels and the cyclists, after listening to Chan's sermon about their wasted lives, go over to his side.
What makes ``Rumble in the Bronx'' worth the price of admission, of course, is the action.
The best sequence has the 41-year-old Chan, who does his own stunts, leaping to a tiny balcony on an adjoining building, a drop of 40 feet. In another, he jumps from a bridge to the narrow rim of a hovercraft. (Unfortunately, he broke his ankle doing this scene, raising the question of whether this is foolish excess or dedication to art.) Still another resembles a Gene Kelly dance routine, with Chan using sofas, chairs, refrigerators, ladders, skis and skateboards as handy weapons.
All of this action, and there's lots more, is adeptly coordinated to music - much better, in fact, than the dialogue synchronization.
The one mistake is a needlessly bloody and tasteless scene in which the hero is downed by flying glass bottles in an alley. It's a lapse from cartoonish excess to serious mayhem.
With the action scenes emerging as more than just so-so, one is inclined to get into the spirit. And why not? Jackie Chan proves that Sly and Arnold have been taking things too seriously all these years. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``Rumble in the Bronx''
Cast: Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Francoise Yip
Director: Stanley Tong
Screenplay: Edgar Tang and Fibe Ma
MPAA rating: R (language, mostly cartoonish violence)
Mal's rating: ***
Locations: Chesapeake Square, Greenbrier in Chesapeake; Janaf,
Main Gate in Norfolk; Columbus, Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach
by CNB