Rush Hour

• Cat.no: EDV 9014
• Cert: 12
• Running time: 94 minutes
• Year: 1998
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
• Chapters: 37 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: English
• Widescreen: 2.35:1
• 16:9-enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: No
• Disc Format: DVD 9
• Price: £19.99
• Extras : Scene index, Cast and Crew info, Behind-the-scenes, Trailer,2 Music Videos, Short Film (“Whatever happened to Mason Reese”), 17 TV spots.

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Director:

Brett Ratner

(Money Talks, Whatever Happened To Mason Reese?)

Producers:

Screenplay:

Music:

(Bullet, Dirty Harry, Mission: Impossible)

Cast:

Detective Inspector Lee: Jackie Chan (Armour of God, Operation Condor: Armour of God 2, Police Story 1-3, Rumble in Hong Kong, Rumble in the Bronx, Twin Dragons, Who Am I ?)
Detective James Carter: Chris Tucker (Dead Presidents, The Fifth Element, Friday, Jackie Brown, Money Talks)
Thomas Griffin/JunTao: Tom Wilkinson (The Full Monty, Priest Sense and Sensibility, TV: Martin Chuzzlewit, Prime Suspect)
Clive: Chris Penn (Liar, Mobsters, Mulholland Falls, The Music of Chance, Pale Rider, Reservoir Dogs, Short Cuts, To Wong Foo)
Tania Johnson: Elizabeth Pena (Blue Steel, A Fugitive Among Us, Jacob’s Ladder, Lone Star)
Capt. Diel: Philip Baker Hall (Boogie Nights, Hard Eight)

Rush Hourhas a simple premise in that the bodyguards of the Chinese consul are murdered atpoint-blank range in front of the consul’s daughter and she is kidnapped. Enter theFBI who ask for renegade LAPD cop James Carter (Chris Tucker), a man on theverge of suspension, to join them for one particular reason – not to help themfind the girl and solve the case, but to keep incoming Chinese cop Lee (JackieChan) from getting in the way, despite him having a personal interest in solvingthe case.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that this is yet another buddy-buddy flick withtwo opposing sides sparking off one another, but both having the same ultimate aim.Tucker acts like a young Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs, wise-cracking andfast-talking, while Chan is Chan, pulling his usual stunts – all done by himself -and cool martial arts moves – which require the full widescreen ratio – while playingon his “stranger in town” status.

The usually-sexy Elizabeth Pena plays his partner, but with her cropped haircuthere, it just doesn’t work for her. Tom Wilkinson plays the bad guy acting to alland sundry as a good guy under a different persona.

There’s little to be said about the picture because it’s spot-on perfect.Anamorphic picture on a dual-layer disc, a high average bitrate of 8Mb/s and thefilm is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 (not “16:9” as quoted onthe back cover, which seems to hint that their DVD releases are anamorphicrather than the actual ratio).

The sound quality is first rate. Fighting, gunshots, explosions – all in DolbyDigital 5.1. Why can’t they ALL be encoded this way ?

Just one language, but the good news is that it is in English and in DolbyDigital 5.1. Subtitles are also included in English, but whenever Chinese languageis spoken, you can forget about a translation.

Other extras :

• Biographies & Filmographies: Info on Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker,Tom Wilkinson, Elizabeth Pena, Julia Hsu (Soo-Yung, the young girl),Tzi Ma (Consul Han) and director Brett Ratner.
• Deleted Scenes: 6 extra bits that didn’t make it to the final cut, totallingthree minutes.
• Featurette: Behind-the-scenes of the film in 17 sections and lasting 40 minutesin total, although the way the back cover states this, you’ll think that running timebelongs to…
• Whatever Happened to Mason Reese ?: A short film marking Ratner’s directorialdebut in 1990 as a student with a guest appearance from the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Medwarf as a chef.
• Audio commentary track: from director Brett Ratner.
• Music videos: Heavy D: “Nuttin’ But Love” and Dru Hill:”How Deep Is Your Love”.

What’s missing ? :Just one thing missing as far as I know.

• An isolated music score with commentary from composer Lalo Schifrin.

Menu :

Another triumph. While some EiV DVD menus are silent and static, this one hasanimation and sound on every page, the latter either being Chinese music orexplosions.

If you like buddy-buddy pictures with zero originality and nothing you haven’t seenbefore then this one’s right up your street and, aside from the isolated music score,this is one of the few EiV DVDs that can hold it’s head up high. Fans of the two stars orthis type of film will snap this up without a hitch, but for me the film doesn’t quite geltogether and there’s not much chemistry between its leads.FILM : **PICTURE QUALITY : *****SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: ****——————————-OVERALL: ****

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.