Category: TEAMWORKING DAY

Brockway: The 1980s and ‘90s were periods of rapid, tumultuous societal change. There was really only one unifying thread binding them together: Their undying certainty that gangs all hung out in cool Peter Pan-style clubhouses. Maybe there were other things. I don’t know. This is literally the only one I’m qualified to talk about.

See, people back then were terrified of gang violence, and sometimes rightfully so, but there was one problem: they also knew nothing about gangs. They basically assumed gangs were like The Little Rascals with guns. They had wacky nicknames, dressed in themed outfits, and all lived together in big clubs that made Pee Wee’s Playhouse look like Paul Reubens’ Jerk-Theater. Rumble in the Bronx has one of the best gang hideouts of the 1990s, but you only experience it while trying to track Jackie Chan’s erratic movements, which you would recognize as impossible if you had the time, but you don’t, because he’s already gouging you in the neck with a curtain rod and now he’s in the rafters and woops, he’s behind you. He has a stepladder. I’m sorry you had to die this way.

But I can’t let you miss this masterpiece of set design, so please allow me to take you through the gang headquarters of Rumble in the Bronx with a level of detail that is frankly worrying, and does not speak well of my mental health.

Seanbaby: Can I come too? I’m coming too. Rumble in the Bronx weeeeeeeek!

Brockway: You have to! There’s a jumpseat in your exact shape. It even has a little mohawk indent. Buckle up, because we’re already at the entrance, which I have dubbed The Fuckvan Foyer. 

The movie breezes right through here, but there are a few sites you’ll need to stop and appreciate. First is the barrel in a hammock:

That’s where they keep the Gang Juice, and its storage directions mandate that the barrel must be kept in a chill place at all times. If you blink, you’ll miss the Dogg Zzone:

This gang might look tough, but they are so pure. They gave that ol’ boy a house, a rug, a toy, and decorated his yard with flowers. It’s almost a shame Jackie Chan is about to teach every single one of them what the inside of their teeth taste like.

Seanbaby: Ivan Pavlov would have really valued what could be learned from a domesticated dog watching fifty imprinted humans get beaten to death, but until Rumble in the Bronx there was no conceivable way to collect that kind of data. 

Brockway: One of this film’s many contributions to the Martial Sciences. Here’s the guardpost, an impassable entryway guarded by a 14 year old punk in a rainbow truck who put his mohawk on upside down.

Here’s the Drug Room:

This is the only room in which people are doing drugs, meaning that the gang has enforced a sort of Hamsterdam scenario in their clubhouse, putting their social programs well ahead of the rest of the country.

Seanbaby: If the Bronx police can’t get the robbery, murder, and drug charges to stick, I think they can charge these people with building an unregulated methane plant in a residential zone.

Brockway: We exit through the Drug Room into the hallway which, as with much of the hideout, is playfully decorated using basic props and colorful tissue like a junior prom. 

And not like, a good junior prom from one of those fancy schools that can afford a theme. This isn’t an ‘Ocean Escape’ or ‘Lucky In Love’ type of deal — this is a ‘Flavor Aid Counts As A Refreshment’ and ‘Jennifer’s Dad Can Get Some Extra Balloons (No Helium)’ affair:

That hallway empties out into the Dancing Room, which is only for dancing, much like the drug room is only for drugs. Gangs of the ‘90s were absolutely brutal about the enforcement of their themed rooms. 

Again, Jackie just burns right through here because he’s on a mission to show local toughs how to kill eight men with a milk crate. But we need to pause to take in the sights. Don’t miss the guy passed out at the piano.

Please note that there are no drugs in the Dancing Room, and overdosing is not dancing, even if you do it festively. This man is about to be kicked out of the gang. Also, this gang has an old-timey piano.

Seanbaby: I think playing dead is just a natural defense mechanism piano players have against Jackie Chan. It’s similar to how flautists spray a jet of caustic fluid when they see Jackie Chan, or how bass players detach their tails to confuse him.

Brockway: Possum Style is the only animal-based Gung-Fu that works on Jackie Chan. Nobody else in the room pays this angry Asian tornado in a denim jacket any attention, though. They’re too busy having the most wholesome good time. We scan very briefly over the crowd of dancers, so please take special care to memorize this one…

… who is wearing a green leprechaun hat and a two-steak necklace? A… a huge fuzzy bowtie? I don’t know what that outfit is, but I do know the questions it poses will plague me until the end of my days.

Seanbaby: If I had to guess, and something inside me says I do, I say that’s an anatomical human lungs costume. So he’s either doing a presentation on the dangers of smoking or showing everyone where to stab a leprechaun so he can’t scream.

Brockway: Oh shit! It can be nothing else. I am no longer plagued. What a short, fun existential crisis that was. 

Anyway, Jackie needs to make an entrance, so he rips the stereo off its stand…

… which is attached to a DJ cage strung with Christmas lights. “That’s a little weird,” you might think, “why is the DJ in a go-kart rollcage?” You have missed the real question: Why does a stereo have a DJ?

Seanbaby: This entire setup seems so far removed from function or aesthetics that it has to be an improvised medical device tinkered together by the gang doctor. He is wired into this thing to live, and Jackie Chan basically tore the iron lung off a man to tell a room to fuck itself. While Jackie is beating this guy’s friends to death with sporting equipment he has to lay there and watch as his kidneys fail to process the toxins out of his blood.

Brockway: It’s sad that DJs don’t have an animal-style defense against Jackie Chan like all the other musicians. Probably because they’re not real musicians to begin with.

Let’s move straight on from that frankly uncalled-for DJ shade: Here’s the main room, before the National Weather Service issued a Severe Jackie Chan warning and every single object in it became lodged in a punk’s asshole.

Jackie slams the stereo down on their pool table, which is the most polite way he knows to introduce himself.

Seanbaby: I think you’re right about this being an attempt at civility. He was probably just trying to lower the volume so they could talk and simply turned it down way too fucking hard. It’s like when Jackie Chan tries on new slacks and accidentally beats a JCPenney juniors department to death.

Brockway: It’s here we get a very brief reaction shot of the crowd. We must stop. We must analyze this.

Seanbaby: This is starting to feel too weird to be safe. I know it’s, like, “our thing,” but I’m not sure anyone is supposed to be looking so carefully at all of this. I feel like scientists discovering a new particle that suddenly says, “Command, there are two of them here who can see us.”

Brockway: I do feel myself evolving in terrifying, but exhilarating new directions. I hope one of them is a Jackie Chan defense mechanism. Maybe I can puke up an old meal to distract him, like the noble vulture.

Hey, quick: What’s the weirdest outfit in that image? Is it the one and only woman in full lingerie — not even ironically torn or defaced, but just straight up looking like she’s the only one trying to save this marriage? Is it the man with a cow-print do-rag? Is it the couple who look like models on a generic Hippy costume in the clearance rack at Huge Hank’s Halloween Outlet Store? No, trick question, it’s the surprise Jamaican not pictured:

He leaps out later in the scene with no warning, wearing a full sample book from a Miami carpet store, and is summarily destroyed by a ski which these idiots forgot to lock in a ski-safe just in case Jackie Chan came by.

Seanbaby: The wardrobe department for Rumble in the Bronx is a cursed Trapper Keeper that turns all it touches into Trapper Keeper. I don’t care if this sounds racist, but if I met this Jamaican guy I would just put my Algebra homework inside him, practice signing my name in a cool way on his vest, then carry him to AP English so he could watch me hate Wuthering Heights.

Brockway: There’s about to be a Category 5 Chanstorm in here, so let’s analyze the decor of this very tough gang’s clubhouse before Jackie makes Tough Tony swallow all of it piece by piece.

Brockway: Here’s a tiny boot lighting fixture, like you’d find blinking in a dusty corner of a TGI Friday’s. 

Seanbaby: Is that a penguin skull hanging next to it? Also like you’d find in a dusty corner of a TGI Friday’s? Is penguin meat how TGI Friday’s gets their chicken tenders to taste like a lifetime of arctic hardship? I swear I learn something new everytime we watch Rumble in the Bronx.

Brockway: At one point Jackie leaps over the far wall, because Jackie Chan lives in noclip mode. 

Dominating that wall is an old Jose Cuervo ad which, sure, alcohol is a gang thing. But hold on now…

All the other paintings are cheesy mass-market Asian landscapes, like you’d find adorning the walls of the Oriental Room — the least popular room in Huge Hank’s Hanky Panky Hotel.

Seanbaby: It is kind of nuts that in a warehouse decorated with every adjective and object known to man they still managed to carve out a spot that’s merely tacky.

Brockway: Other walls feature giant novelty cards…

And dice…

… presumably to imply a connection to gambling, which scans as a criminal thing. I’ll give you that — but these look more like they stole the design vibes from a bingo parlor in an Elks Lodge, a fact which is proven by the Bingo paddle they strapped to a neary mannequin.

Seanbaby: They really do decorate like children trying to recreate a world described to them by their grandparents when humans lived above ground in the long-ago. But I suppose if you had to obnoxiously agree with someone, a Bingo paddle seems like a gentle alternative to an air horn.

Brockway: Once again you have fallen for the trap, focusing on the obvious while overlooking the piece of cardboard taped to the wall that says ‘cardboard’ on it.

Seanbaby: Oh, sweet: pizza! Aarrggh, come on! I told you assholes if you’re going to staple cardboard to the wall, please put “NOT PIZZA” on it! Fine, “CARDBOARD” works too! Whatever!

Brockway: Tough Tony, the gang-leader who dresses like Mick Jagger cosplaying as a bosun, squares up against Jackie on a pool table…

… and it’s a great shot, but they’re doing it beneath this distractingly quirky lighting fixture…

And I can’t help but picture these hardcore punks who spend their days knocking over grocery stores and glass-shredding Chinese dudes taking some free time to carefully rig up a playful chandelier you’d normally find in a kooky aunt’s dining room.

Actually, you can feel that same kooky aunt’s touch everywhere:

From the artfully paint-splattered ductwork, to…

The playful scrap Tiki Monster at the entrance. Kooky Kathy needed a creative outlet, so her nephew gave her free reign over the gang hideout with the only stipulations being ‘all material must come from the miscellaneous rack at a vintage furniture store’ and ‘no Hummels if you can help it.’

Seanbaby: It’s weird the gang labeled the cardboard as “cardboard” but not this as “titty devil fertility idol.”

Brockway: All right, back to the fight.

Tough Tony loses the standoff with Jackie Chan, because he was ready to block punches and it never occurred to him that he might get hit with a pinball machine instead. The whole scene bursts into chaos as everyone in the club tries to kill Jackie Chan, and Jackie Chan tries to make it look like they ever stood a chance. So you could be forgiven for missing…

… the several dozen ancient phone handsets carefully strung in one corner.

This was obviously done intentionally, and yet could serve no possible purpose. Once again, I must assume it’s an art installation, painstakingly hung by a bevy of artpunks to symbolize the stifled voices of the disenfranchised in an era of burgeoning hyper-connectivity. Or because the set designer found a box of old phones on a street corner and thought “must be a gang thing.”

Seanbaby: If you turn the sound way up you can hear voices coming from each of those phones screaming, “Hello!? Hello!? Are you there? It sounds like Jackie Chan just fucking kicking your ass! Hello!?”

Brockway: All gangs know that sound by heart. They do drills for it. They practice slapping each other with mouse traps and stuffing each other into giant tires just so they’ll be prepared if Jackie Chan shows up in a tanktop turtleneck with his lil’ koala face set to ‘murderous frown.’

Let’s move on to explore the Fridge Room. 

If you’re watching the movie, there are far too many backlips to pause and question why a gang of troubled youths have an entire room dedicated to forty-year old fridges. They serve no purpose, they’re empty. Please allow “Cool ‘70s Man Costume” to demonstrate that fact with first his face:

And then his groin:

Seanbaby: Shout out to the Rumble in the Bronx wardrobe department who saw the script call for “TUBULAR JERMAINE looks like a cartoon earthworm recently chased through a clothesline” and absolutely nailed it.

Brockway: Bordering Fridge Room is Ancient Television Room, which again we do not question– they’re here to be thrown at Jackie Chan, if only so he can prove how futile that gesture is:

And in the far corner is the Sports Nook, which consists solely of golf clubs and skis– the exact two sports these teenage punks would never participate in. 

It did occur to me that this might be the Stolen Goods Warehouse, but it’s too consistent: They only steal skis, golf clubs, old phones, non-functional televisions, and ancient refrigerators. They must exclusively rob middle-class Rhode Island men who left their garages open during Spring Cleaning.

Seanbaby: Every weekend is the same for Tony’s gang: murdering a foreign national in broad daylight then driving through Connecticut and stopping at every yard sale they see. “Practically free used appliances! Practically free used appliances! Practically free used appliances!” the gang chants.

Brockway: Eventually the fight ends when Tough Tony recognizes that chasing Jackie Chan around with a pool cue is like chasing a tiger around while wearing a two-steak necklace. Then Prodigy’s dorky younger brother comes in with a sack of loose Lance.

But a garbage bag full of manmeat isn’t the strangest thing in this image:

Generic cheesy puffs and champagne? Is this gang hosting every New Year’s Eve party I’ve ever thrown? The set design is crazy, of course. It goes very hard on the Goodwill electronics and cat-lady knick knacks, but nothing compares to the amount of snacks decorating this hideout.

There are just bags and bags of haphazard snacks everywhere. Fully half the set budget went into clearing out the chip aisle at the Dollar General:

Not only are snacks on every surface, there are several shopping carts just full of assorted groceries.

Are those fucking bulk canned tomatoes? Does this gang host Make Your Own Pie-Day Friday? Wait, hold on, let’s rewind back to the Drug Room real quick:

Got some family-sized boxed mac and cheese on the heroin table, huh? There is no kitchen in this place. If these punks eat Kraft dino-shapes dry, they have earned every bit of their hardass reputation.

Seanbaby: This diet is why their DJs have to be kept alive with Christmas lights and pinball machine parts.

Brockway: Had to be kept alive. 

It’s clear that this gang absolutely loves two things: snacks and knick-knacks. I don’t recall their name being mentioned in the film, so they are now the Knick-Snack Gang, and they are precious to me. Like everything in Rumble in the Bronx, the throwaway bits are what really change the whole tone of the film into something special. I am now absolutely certain this gang only robs to pay for their crippling T.J. Maxx overflow aisle addiction, even though the real story is probably more like the closest thing to a gang member the set designer knew was their teenaged nephew, and when they asked him what his ultimate gang hideout would look like, they did not factor in how different 13 is from 17.

Seanbaby: I hope the Rumble in the Bronx set designer knows we love and appreciate them while they’re shouting for help at the bottom of thirteen tons of snow shovels, microwaves, and mannequin limbs. Happy Rumble in the Bronx Week to them! And you! To everyone! We did it!

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.