Rumble in Hong Kong

Version: English dub

Police Woman - What police woman? Rumble in Hong Kong - what rumble? Young Tiger - is he the taxi driver? Where's Jackie Chan? Who is Jacky Chan? Is he that guy who looks like Jackie Chan, but has a mole the size of large rodent on his face? So many questions, such a bad movie.

A female ex-gang member dies in taxi, and leaving behind a purse. The gang she used to belong to is looking for the purse, as is the Police Woman, who actually plays the side-kick to the taxi driver, who is the real hero of the movie. Wow. Jackie plays the gangs second-in-command, and frequently gets beaten up in his role as a thug.

Pretty boring movie overall. Boring fight scenes, bad dubbing, bad DVD transfer. The shining point of the movie is when the taxi driver and his buddies are talking about social values, arguing that 'the kids watch too many violent movies these days'. It might explain the lack of decent action.

3/10 - Don't watch this movie, unless you want to see Jackie Chan as a bad guy, or before he became a star - in that respect its much better than say, 'Eagle Shadow Fist'.

I only saw this when I was round a friend's house a few years ago. I had to restrain myself from falling asleep.

The plot was rubbish, the dubbing was among the worst I'd ever seen, the acting was rank and the whole story was a bore. Its only redeeming feature is seeing Jackie as a baddie, and even that's not enough to save it from the mire.

All Jackie Chan fans - STEER WELL CLEAR OF THIS ONE!

I love watching some of Jackie Chans old movies. They usually have great action sequences, but not this one!!!! I had to force myself to actually finish it. It was so weird to see him as a bad guy, and he had this big hairy mole on his face. I mean, what's the deal with that? He was hardly even in it, and was not the main character. I also think his name is all over the box just because of his fame. Usually when watching his old films I usually can look past the fact that it's low budget, but this one I could not. It was really bad quality. The only thing I really found funny was seeing all of them run around in bell bottoms, and that chezzy 70's music in the background. So whatever you do, if you want to watch a good Jackie Chan movie DO NOT watch Rumble in Hong Kong.

This is probably the only movie where Jackie plays the bad guy. He's the right hand man of a crime boss in this movie.

The movie follows the old school format of movies of that era. Charlie Chin was enormously popular back in those days, and he was the lead in every movie he starred in. Young Jackie had to take back seat to him on this one. Charlie Chin's type of mellow movie would be usurped by kung fu action movies shortly, because the year this movie was made, "Enter the Dragon" by Bruce Lee would hit the theaters, and cause a kung fu action movie craze that is still on going today.

The story is about heroin trafficking in Hong Kong, and Jackie is one of the gangs. The movie gets to a very predictable ending, and production wise, nothing to speak of. But this type of movie was considered entertaining with a double feature at the theaters back then. In almost every other movie, you'd see Charlie Chin playing the star.

See the movie for the nostalgia.

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.