Author: 1900HOTDOG

Seanbaby: Rumble in the Bronx follows the classic 10-Act Jackie Chan film structure (see below), and we set out to find the best moment from each one. Not the best sequences or stunts — that’s not what makes this movie magical. We wanted to rate those treasured moments in between Jackie Chan’s sweet suicide attempts. We tallied our votes with those of six Rumble in the Bronx experts (Eddie Doty, Timmy Leahy, Alan Chang, Evan Trask, Josh S, and Michael Swaim) to create this, the once-and-for-all list of most delightful Rumble in the Bronx things.

Official Rules: Each expert selected one moment from each act, a process we invented called “voting,” but were given one emergency tie for mental safety regulations. They were all made aware of the gravity of this poll and how this would be the most important article ever written. We now present Acts 8-10.

It’s at this point in the story when no one can come close to beating Jackie Chan and all the bad guys have flagrantly committed crimes where hundreds of people saw in a city where police exist. The greatest moment from this act, as you’d expect, is “Danny Watches His Cushion Die” with a dominating five votes.

Brockway: Jesus Christ I cried. I bawled. That cushion was this movie. It felt like I was watching that 7 foot tall henchgolem disembowel a beloved dog. It’s like if Artax had died from The Undertaker ripping out his intestines and throwing himself a little ticker tape parade with them.

Seanbaby: Two people voted for the moment when Jackie Chan pretends to be a henchman when White Tiger calls. I guess we’ll call this moment “Oh Hey, White Tiger Specifically Avoids Using Racial or Ableist Slurs When Speaking About a Child in a Wheelchair He Wants to Assassinate. Huh.”

And then we received one vote for “Jackie Appeals to the Disabled Child Abuser’s Humani– SLAP!“

Zero votes for this one, but we all agree it’s very good.

Brockway: I took a less formal poll and we all agreed they both looked up and kissed a little after this.

Seanbaby: He has the diamonds, two of the main bad guys are tied up, and the local police are desperately on his side. If he does nothing at this point, the worst thing that could happen is two assholes who have been terrorizing him all movie are killed along with the stripper he’d gone on half a date with while he keeps a bag of diamonds. But Jackie still manages to fuck it all up and almost die, pointlessly.

Brockway: I once watched Jackie Chan run down the side of a skyscraper. There are no qualifiers in that sentence – he just actually did that. If Jackie Chan didn’t pretend to screw everything up in his movies, they would be thirty seconds long. This would be a movie about the time some thugs accosted Jackie Chan in a supermarket and he beat the holy spirit out of them using only his windbreaker and they went “Jesus fucking Christ we are extremely sorry and we are going to reconsider our entire lives now. Maybe we could be drinking tea together!”

Seanbaby: For this one, let’s start with the moments that didn’t win because I want to show how competitive this section was. By Act-9, the plot has accelerated past the point of reason. It feels like they told the actors they only had four minutes of film left and to just say the most awesome things they could while they tried to kill Jackie Chan. This technique would serve Jackie Chan well for the next 30 years of his career.

There was one vote for the second phone call between White Tiger and Jackie. At gunpoint, White Tiger’s men forced a tow truck driver to pull down Jackie’s Uncle’s recently sold bodega. Those were the stakes! And while Jackie is reeling from having the building he’s in get torn down, White Tiger calls to say:

Another moment that only received one vote was “Police Officer Narrates Jackie Chan’s Undercover Operation.”

Brockway: This was actually Hank from Breaking Bad’s first credited speaking role. Don’t fucking fact check me. I will accept no follow up questions.

Seanbaby: I mentioned earlier how much I love the character “Police Officer” who everyone in the movie calls “Howard.” He’s spent the first part of the film puffing and shrugging like an animatronic police chief in a TJ Hooker ride, but after only an hour, the script finally calls for him to talk. Two votes for: “They At Long Last Give Howard a Line And He Fucking Bodies It.” His line doesn’t really make sense with the setup, but he is so happy to be talking, and he sounds exactly like a Hong Kong director would expect a black American cop from the ’70s to sound.

Brockway: Sometimes I have trouble remembering my address, but find me on the street at literally any moment in my life and I can tell you the exact crazy cadence in which he says 🎶you BETTA BE CAREful🎶.

Seanbaby: I don’t know if I’m revealing an insider secret or if every agent already told this to their clients and that’s how I know about it, but if you’re a westerner reading for a part on a Hong Kong film, deliver every line like you’re George Jefferson having an argument with a hallucination under a noisy helicopter. It’s exactly what they’re looking for.

There’s this amazing moment during the undercover operation when Jackie tells the henchmen he wants to speak to their boss “White Tiger” and he replies…

Brockway: Dude looks like my index finger.

Seanbaby: Part of the magic of this movie is they gave 80% of the dialog to stuntmen with no acting experience trying to please a director who thinks there are two types of performances: “normal” and “normal without swords.” The way this stuntman took three entire hours to suspiciously peek in both directions after he says “OUR BOSS IS NOT WHITE TIGER,” is how Garfield would react if the mayor exclaimed his prized lasagna was missing. It’s why this moment earned… wait, zero votes? “OUR BOSS IS NOT WHITE TIGER” didn’t get any votes? How!? People quote this line 25 years after seeing this movie once. Is our system flawed? Oh, I see what happened. Howard. Howard stole the scene again.

Seanbaby: Howard spots the bad guys and screams “HEY!” at them. Then he decides to put his cigar in his mouth so he can hold his gun with both hands and he takes so long they shoot him. Right in the cigar. And on a Jackie Chan set, the special effect for making it look like you were shot in the cigar is, “Here, Western clown, put this explosive in your mouth and do your best to keep your eyes open, ACTION!*” The scene ends with Jackie Chan getting so fed up with Howard’s bullshit he leaves to catch the bad guys himself, which honestly seems like what Howard was going for.

* translated from Cantonese

Seanbaby: This finale is the raddest ending of any movie. He kills a hovercraft by sticking a stolen sword out the window of a stolen lamborghini. Then the cops repair it and let Jackie drive it as part of an arrest! Why? The screenwriter knew you’d ask so he added a line about it! It’s because “White Tiger’s men are driving the thing,” but this makes no sense because Jackie Chan is obviously not one of White Tiger’s men and, sure enough, White Tiger shoots at him the moment the hovercraft interrupts his golf game. No, listen: the police put a civilian with no hovercraft license in charge of an undercover hovercraft operation to arrest a crime syndicate boss on a crowded golf course!!! FUCK! Fuck, I love this movie!

Brockway: There are several scenes in the hovercraft chase where they show that the trained pilot of the hovercraft is not fully in control of the hovercraft. Piloting a hovercraft is like driving anything over 25MPH in GTA V. Your inputs are suggestions to not just be ignored, but actively scorned. There’s a brief scene in the finale where they break to show the hovercraft pilot telling Jackie Chan how to pilot a hovercraft for revenge purposes. That scene takes place in Manhattan. The next scene takes place on a golf course. There is no hovercraft tow truck. Jackie Chan killed 800 people on the 40 mile journey to scrape up White Tiger’s buns.

Seanbaby: Five votes for “Jackie Saves the Baby From the Hovercraft.”

One vote for “Howard and Police Officer Bumped Into the Hovercraft and They Are Out of Ideas!”

Seanbaby: When Jackie Chan is in Hong Kong, the cops are superhuman crimestopping machines and he usually plays one of them. When Jackie’s in America, cops are the dumbest pieces of worthless shit, just whining about how crime is hard and giving up after the first hovercraft bumps into their bitch ass patrol cars. There are five different occasions where these two cops fuck up the The Case of the Obvious Criminals Doing Crime In Front of Everyone and that’s not counting the three times they put a foreign national with massive head trauma and no law enforcement training in charge of a criminal investigation.

Two votes for “Jackie Chan Runs Down White Tiger With the Hovercraft.”

And one vote for “Freeze Frame Hovercraft Mauling!”

Brockway: You know what I voted for. Every single everything should end with a triumphant freeze frame, and it might have actually been Rumble in the Bronx that taught me this. Of course, that’s not really the end. All Jackie Chan movies really end with the outtakes over credits, where it’s revealed that every single person involved in the filming of this movie technically died at least once. There’s a scene where Jackie Chan leaps from a bridge to the hovercraft and breaks his ankle. He does not stop filming. He returns to set with a cast, and they airbrush a giant sock to look like his other shoe so he can keep doing stunts with broken limbs. 

If you pause just right on certain scenes, you can see it. It is a symbol of inspirational madness. Of persistence that triumphs over everything, even basic safety procedures. That’s what I aspire to be. That’s we should all aspire to be: Jackie Chan’s one big shoe.

Seanbaby: Rumble in the Bronx follows the classic 10-Act Jackie Chan film structure (see below), and we set out to find the best moment from each one. Not the best sequences or stunts — that’s not what makes this movie magical. We wanted to rate those treasured moments in between Jackie Chan’s sweet suicide attempts. We tallied our votes with those of six Rumble in the Bronx experts (Eddie Doty, Timmy Leahy, Alan Chang, Evan Trask, Josh S, and Michael Swaim) to create this, the once-and-for-all list of most delightful Rumble in the Bronx things.

Official Rules: Each expert selected one moment from each act, a process we invented called “voting,” but were given one emergency tie for mental safety regulations. They were all made aware of the gravity of this poll and how this would be the most important article ever written. We now present Acts 4-7.

The gang is still terrorizing Jackie all day, and in clear view of unlimited witnesses. They, all of them, show up on his way to the market and chase him through a parking lot. Despite being able to just walk through an unlimited number of these lame fucks, Jackie spends another full scene running from them. Well, except for the gang’s Indian, who Jackie singles out to pull off a motorcycle and obliterate with a 200-hit combo. Not sure if that’s anything, but it’s weird, right?

Brockway: Don’t make this out to be a race thing. You called him the gang’s Indian specifically because he is not Native American. He is a Chinese stuntman dressed like Steven Seagal dressed like an Indian. Jackie Chan introduced this problematic Halloween costume motherfucker to a Guilty Gear combo on basic principle. 

Seanbaby: Anyway, in Act-4 we have a tie for first place. With three votes comes the moment Jackie Chan wakes up from being beaten nearly to death by broken glass, nude on Danny’s couch. With fluttering eyebrows, Danny lets him know his sister got a real good look at him. A real good look.

Seanbaby: Also with three votes comes “Worst Fucking Snitch in All of The Bronx.” This bouncy ball salesman (?) sees a violent street gang in the middle of a manhunt shouting variations of, “I CAN’T FIND HIM ANYWHERE!” He gets into his truck to find a panicked gentleman with terror in his kind eyes and, within earshot of so many obvious murderers, loudly shouts…

Seanbaby: Our external consultants did not agree with us, but Brockway and I both voted for this touching moment where Danny interrupts his sister’s speech on how hard she works to support him with…

Brockway: Important note – just a few seconds later in this same scene, Nancy says she’ll get the new cushion tomorrow. Danny hits her with “‘Tomorrow tomorrow,’ always tomorrow!” This is a rarely seen debate technique called the Double Double. Danny, the relentless little savage, only serves it Animal Style. 

Seanbaby: Danny’s cushion is all he ever talks about and advances the plot at least 72 different times. It foreshadows and calls back. It establishes motivations and creates unique symbolic connections to five different characters. Filmmakers will study the cushion in Rumble in the Bronx for centuries; the pinnacle of elegance in screenwriting.

Honorable mention with zero votes: “Tony Says Hi to Jackie.”

This one was a free act. There’s only one choice for greatest line here and it’s the one where Jackie Chan silently jumps 700 feet through a window! What the fuck, Jackie!

Brockway: There’s no rope tied to him. No harness. In the outtakes, you can see it more clearly — there are absolutely no safety measures here. If Jackie Chan did not make this jump, the backup plan was “miss Jackie Chan with all your heart.” Somebody must have seen this fucking insane jump that he was proposing, and told Jackie Chan he couldn’t do this. I wonder how that person lives with themselves.

Seanbaby: This whole gang Jackie has been beating up and running from are nothing compared to the real villains: White Tiger and his henchmen! The police are as surprised as we are!

I and two others voted for the first place moment, “Howard Shrugs.” Howard is credited as “Police Officer” and does not have a line in this scene despite his partner talking to him for a minute straight. He spends his end of the conversation puffing his cigar, pretending to type, and finally ending it with a helpless SHRUG. He is a champion of scenery chewing. Howard manages to steal a scene in this movie, without saying a single word.

Brockway: I don’t understand. I don’t know how he does it. He gets like three lines in this entire movie and one of them is a shrug. He wears plain suspenders and a tasteful button-up, and he’s surrounded by characters dressed like they’re making fun of 1993. Characters that deliver their lines like anime villains — anime villains in the dub version — and spend every other scene backflipping into dumpsters after a Jackie Chan kick. The best stunt Howard does in this film is ‘laying down rather quickly one time.’ How does he steal scenes with competition like this??? I should not remember Howard. I do remember Howard!

Seanbaby: With two votes is the moment where Howard’s partner, “Police Officer” learns they have to release two suspects in a series of murders and robberies with ties to organized crime because their lawyer said so.

The next three lines each received one vote:

Act-6 Bronze Medalist #1: “Danny Sometimes Gets Mad At His Legs”

Act-6 Bronze Medalist #2: “Danny Sometimes is The Master of Shade”

Fun Fact: The set designers for Rumble in the Bronx decorated Danny’s building in graffiti to create an authentic subsidized housing feeling and here are actual phrases from that graffiti:

BIG DICK GONE BAD

MARTIN LUTHER KING

I’LL KILL U

POPEYE RULES

PAY OR DIE RAT FINK

COMMANDO RAIDS

LOVE YER TITS ROXANNE

TOMORROW IS TOO LATE

LINDA 555-2743

MALCOM X

LOS CABRONES

PUTA

TROY’S STASH <—–

JUANITA 555-2222

XO FUNKHOLE RAP

OLIVE OIL RULES

BILLY LIVES HERE

Brockway: Pretty savage burn on Wimpy by omission.

Seanbaby: Back to what we were talking about. Act-6 Bronze Medalist #3: “NYPD’s Best Interrogator Strikes Out.”

Seanbaby: In a legendary act of revenge, Jackie Chan starts dating the gang leader’s girlfriend, walks into his headquarters, insults him, and kicks his ass. Then he beats the fucking fuck out of everyone in his gang with their own leisure equipment. Their place is decorated like a Youtuber’s McMansion and he breaks every square inch of it over the Indian’s fringe jacket.

Brockway: Jackie Chan absolutely mauls every single member of this gang, so it’s such a superfluous power move to also start banging their leader’s girlfriend halfway through the movie. You can see in his eyes he’s not even slightly into her. This is pure psychological warfare. This is the mental version of knocking eight men’s teeth out with a paint can. 

Seanbaby: Fun-moment-wise, this was a very competitive act with Jackie Chan’s awkward kiss and the time he says to the gang, “YOU ARE ALL GARBAGE,” not even placing. Four moments tied for first place with two votes. The first one is a truly magical shot lingering on an ice cream salesman where nameless extras seem to be deliberately following a script, but one that seems impossible for anyone to have written down. There are 17 precisely executed lines about ice cream or thanking someone for ice cream from characters unrelated to the story in a scene that isn’t about ice cream. In a film this efficient, this artfully crafted, where every line is a Herculean struggle by a non-English speaker, it must mean something; but what!? Consider this while you read “Very Natural Ice Cream Small Talk.”

Also receiving two votes is “Tony Says Staaahhhp and It Doesn’t Work and Jackie Chan Keeps Beating the Chinese Gang Member’s Dick and Head With a Ski.”

Brockway: It should be noted that Tony tells his gang to STAAAHHHP after firing a gun into the air, and follows it up by insisting that everybody leave Jackie alone. Tony has a gun and a gang and Jackie Chan has one half of some used sports equipment and Tony is extremely concerned for the safety of his people.

Seanbaby: My vote was for this scene where a guy comes in with a garbage bag full of Lance, the gang’s barbarian White Tiger’s men put through a wood chipper. I love it not only for his once-in-a-generation combination of over and under acting, but because of what happens next. Everyone starts puking and screaming when they open the sloppy bag of human remains and Lisa runs to Jackie Chan, who is in the room watching all of this, to inform him, “Keung, a friend of mine was murdered.” This movie can take a garbage bag of liquid Lance and make it hilarious.

And the fourth first place winner is “Jackie Turns The Criminals’ Lives Around.”

Brockway: I’m the only one that voted for this, and that’s insane. Jackie bursts into a gang’s hideout and shows them all a whole new world that looks like this one only you’re upside down and deepthroating a pool cue, then he tells them they should drink tea together and they all — every single one of them — reconsider their criminal ways on the spot. They’re all best friends after this! This is the defining moment in all of cinema! I request these results be invalidated. I demand we adjourn while I motion for a formal inquiry into criminal Rumble tampering.

There was once a hugely successful martial arts actor known in Asia for his daring, creative stunts. After a dozen hit kung fu films this man finally made his American debut in 1980 with… The Big Brawl, which nobody watched. America wasn’t ready yet. So this man went back to China and made several unmatched, legendary classics until 1985 when America was finally ready for… The Protector, which nobody watched again. So this man went back and made eleven of the greatest martial arts films that will ever be until 1995 when America was finally fucking ready for… Rumble in the Bronx.

Seanbaby: I think Rumble in the Bronx is one of the most perfect films ever made without any qualifications. It never goes more than five seconds without someone doing something amazing or saying something hilarious. Jackie Chan is a master of his craft at the top of his game and every other character is a chemical spill of deranged wardrobe and acting choices fighting to steal the scene. It has more ironic quotable moments than The Room and better action than The Room.

Brockway: Fair warning: If you haven’t seen Rumble in the Bronx already, you are living half a life. It’s the reason coworkers have trouble remembering your name, why everyone you ever liked forgot to call you back, and it will be the reason a self-driving car runs you down as you’re trying to cross the street. You are not entirely recognizable as a human being in this condition. Please watch Rumble in the Bronx immediately. 

Another fair warning: This is fucking Rumble in the Bronx week! Now would be an especially good time to pause and watch Rumble in the Bronx, because this whole week is going to rumble you right in the ol’ bronx. This here is a massive three-part article spanning the next few days, the podcast is a multi-installment epic all about dissecting Rumble in the Bronx, and then we wrap things up on Friday with a little break from Rumble in the Bronx called RUMBLE IN THE BRONX. 

An even fairer warning: Every single day this week is Teamworking Day! We simply cannot take Jackie Chan alone. But we’re fairly confident we can beat him together! What’s he gonna do? There are two of us and there’s nothing in this room he can use as a weapon! There’s just some old construction equipment, a pair of stilts, and half a bicycle. We’ve got him!

Seanbaby: Let’s stop fucking around and get to the point: Rumble in the Bronx follows the classic 10-Act Jackie Chan film structure (see below), and we set out to find the best moment from each one. Not the best sequences or stunts– that’s not what makes this movie magical. We wanted to rate those treasured moments in between Jackie Chan’s sweet suicide attempts. We tallied our votes with those of six Rumble in the Bronx experts (Eddie Doty, Timmy Leahy, Alan Chang, Evan Trask, Josh S, and Michael Swaim) to create this, the once-and-for-all list of most delightful Rumble in the Bronx things.

Official Rules: Each expert selected one moment from each act, a process we invented called “voting,” but were given one emergency tie for mental safety regulations. They were all made aware of the gravity of this poll and how this would be the most important article ever written. We now present Acts 1-3:

Jackie Chan screenplays have the same subtlety as how he physically communicates “I have recently taken damage to my ass.” The exposition comes at the viewer with as much violence as the fights, and this one is just barely more natural than Jackie turning to camera and saying, “Hi, my name: Jackie Chan and in this film I am a gentle fightmaster along with Billy Tung, who play my uncle Bill! We shopkeepers in ‘The Bronx’ and big crimes are about to happen. Danny is in wheelchair but has legs for his heart! Keep an eye out for our magic friend Loo-Kee who will hiding somewhere in the background! Okay, let’s do a action movie! It’s exterior day time!“

In a dominating victory, this Act-1 moment received five votes out of a possible 8:

There was never any contest. Jackie Chan is working his dead father’s kung fu dummy and the neighbor boy Danny rolls in, popping a wheelchair wheelie, to scream, “GOOD MOVES. YOU’RE NUMBER ONE!” It’s fucking stupid every movie doesn’t open like this.

Brockway: This must be the winner, because every Jackie Chan movie is a thumbs up. They are the very embodiment of the thumbs up gesture. This one was an instructional win. It simply had to be our first winner, or the dumb among us would spend the entire movie wondering which way to point our thumbs (reminder: up). 

Seanbaby: A competing moment scoring two votes was the one where Jackie Chan hands his new friend Danny a Sega Game Gear with no cartridge in it and Uncle Bill’s kneejerk reaction is this:

And receiving only one vote is when Jackie meets Uncle Bill’s fiancé who was clearly given the direction “Jackée, but much, much, much bigger.” She grabs him, liplessly mouth attacks his face, and a sass demon deep within her moans…

Brockway: I need you to prepare yourselves now. Seanbaby does an impression of this moment on the podcast, even though I begged him not to, and it almost blew out my headphones. I’m still picking sass out of my ear canals.

Seanbaby: In Act-2 we meet the multicultural gang with Christmas-decorated dune buggies and dirtbikes! This Bronx street gang, filmed on location in Toronto, looks like a “Celebrate Diversity” poster at a Boise, Idaho community college. And they don’t give a fuck. They have a dirtbike race over parked cars in the middle of the night! The stakes are only $1000 and THAT’S DOUBLE the normal amount! 

When they have their first fight, Jackie Chan immediately and without effort just beats the ass off of these fuckers. Like nobody comes close to landing a shot. He takes more damage from this camel toe:

Brockway: This outfit. This fucking outfit. At the best of times Jackie Chan dresses like a 1980s gum commercial where everyone is skiing. But to know that, beneath it all, he’s wearing one-piece underwear? That he’s sporting a pastel blue tank-top that segues into hotpants with an extra-long dickflap that starts at his belly button? It’s like the whole world makes a kind of sense I never knew it didn’t until just now.

Seanbaby: Now that you’re caught up with the plot, this gang is ridiculous and no match for Jackie Chan, let’s talk about the best moments. In first place (with 3 votes) was when a customer who knew Jackie’s name ran up to scream this, then never appeared again in the movie:

Jackie’s response to this surprise dress rehearsal of a Marlon Wayans Han Solo parody is simply, “THAT’S CHINESE, KUNG FU” because the dialog in this film is perfect. Speaking of perfect dialog, the second place line also received three votes but is objectively not as good as OH-KEE-YUNG-THAT-WAS-ALRIGHT Guy so I broke the tie with my flawless judgement. It’s delivered after Anita Mui catches Angelo stealing juice, and I don’t mean a series of events escalate to it– I mean he gets caught shoplifting and instantly shrieks this:

Tied for third place are the moments we’ll call “Dirtbike Racer Girl Cheers For Herself” … 

… and “Jackie Chan Clearly Explains the Situation.”

Brockway: You see what I mean? That background could dissolve to white and Jackie Chan could ski away from this confrontation and you wouldn’t bat an eye, so long as he popped some Doublemint first.

Seanbaby: Finally, here’s a personal favorite that earned zero votes: “Assertive Cholo Interrupts Ass Kicking.”

Seanbaby: The gang is out for revenge and now they have a barbarian! And an Apache warrior! And they bring their girlfriends to daring broad daylight street ambushes!

They actually hatch a pretty clever scheme to use Jackie’s heroism against him and trap him in an alley so they can pad baseball bats and shoot glass bottles at him. They must practice this shit all the time because the command for it is just “Rock and Roll!” and each of them flawlessly executes their part. And all the winning moments come from this particular scene.

First, with four votes, is when Angelo points his gun at Tony, the gang leader. Marc Akerstream, the stuntman playing Tony, doesn’t get a lot of speaking roles so given this opportunity, he brought seven films worth of acting choices to this six word response.

Brockway: You can actually see him wrestling the words out of his mouth. Every syllable put his tongue in a headlock on the way out and refused to budge, like trying to get a cat in the bath. 

Seanbaby: The second place moment is right afterwards when the gang falls apart and each of them leaves Jackie Chan’s execution for different personal reasons. Every actor delivers their line with the timing of a cruise ship macarena contest in such a perfectly accidentally hilarious mess.

Nancy: “You asshole.”

Nancy’s Boyfriend: “Nancy!?”

Lisa: “You loser!”

Stacey: “Lisa!”

Barbarian: “Stacey, wait!”

Brockway: Hot pink Raised Fists and Celtic knot khakis. That’s all. That’s all I have to say today. Let’s take a break to consider this, and meet to discuss tomorrow.