Male Relationships and Power in East Asian Film

           Across East Asian Film male relationships dominate film. Each region has its own way of portraying the friendship and balance of power between the male characters of their films. The way these films cover male relationships is often quite different from how most Hollywood films portray them. Relationships between the men in these films can at times be almost homoerotic in how close the two are. Often when the relationships are equal they tend to be ill-fated, possibly making a subtle hint at how society can never let men appear too close together without the relationship appearing flawed. Rarely does a relationship form and maintain without some external force tearing them apart. In some cases the male characters can’t even form relationships. Some films focus entirely on the independence of the male character as a driving theme and some contain a relationship between two men constantly vying for power

            In Hong Kong film, there seems to be a focus on tough independent male characters. Cheng drives the plot of Big Boss almost entirely by his own actions. His family is essentially there to be kidnapped or hurt to inspire him to action. Cheng actually hardly bonds with anyone in this film, male or female. The relationship between Chiao Mei and Cheng is really only realized at the end. He doesn’t interact with her too much during the course of the film. The only significant relationship here is between Cheng and Hsiao Mi, the big boss himself. Ignoring the fact that this is a sort of hero/villain relationship, it’s still not even a very “intimate” relationship. Cheng’s family actually interacts more with him when they try to get him to treat the workers better. Cheng is essentially there to come in and stop Hsiao Mi once things have finally gone too far. The closest they get is when they fight, and even then there is little dialogue between them. There’s a power struggle there, certainly, but not much else.

            Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master changes things up slightly by having multiple types of male relationships. First and foremost, there is the master and student relationship between Wong Fei-hung and Yuen Siu-tien. Here, there are a couple of different issues of power occurring simultaneously between the two. First, on a rather shallow level we have physical differences between the men such as height and age. Wong Fei-hung is both younger and taller, which leaves him with the perception that he has power over Yuen Siu-tien. In reality, Yuen Siu-tien’s experience grants him a much greater level of power than Wong Fei-hung could have expected. In terms of pure fighting skills, Yuen Siu-tien clearly holds the power here. However, this isn’t the only relationship these two men have. Over the course of the movie, there are moments where they forget their physical differences and appear as equals, seated at equal heights in the frame of the film while drinking and talking amiably. At times they share both a master/mentor relationship and a friendship on equal footing. However, we also get moments that remind us of our differences once again such as the scene where Wong Fei-hung drinks himself to sleep after their light-hearted moment together and Yuen Siu-tien quietly recites a poem to himself. They may appear as equals at times, but the film reminds us that Yuen Siu-tien is a man of a different time and cannot completely coexist with Wong Fei-hung.

Wong Fei-hung also has a more dynamic relationship than Cheng with his adversary Thunderleg. Thunderleg could have just kept his display of power over Wong to a simple fight and left him to recover. Instead, Thunderleg goes for an extra display of dominance by forcing Wong to crawl underneath him and he proceeds to kick him over afterwards. He also makes him burn his clothes. He puts an unusual amount of effort into making sure Wong appears as weak and powerless as possible. At this point their closeness is almost at the point of homoeroticism (at least to a Western perspective).

The Japanese films in our viewing list followed a similar method of presenting men who worked alone and asserted their dominance through their independence. For example, Ashitaka of Princess Mononoke is entirely focused on getting rid of his curse and achieving balance between Irontown and the forest. His relationship with either side is not portrayed as particularly strong. He doesn’t strike up a positive or negative relationship with anyone female or male. He is most similar to Cheng from Big Boss though at least Cheng had some semblance of a romantic relationship and a degree of connection with his male cousins.

Ikiru is the only Japanese film where I feel the main character had a few significant male relationships. First and foremost, there are Watanabe’s male coworkers who at first appear indifferent to him, but after his death they appear to be inspired by his work. Of course in the end they all turn out to be nowhere near as brave as Watanabe and fall back into their old ways. For a moment though, Watanabe almost appears as a mentor to his younger coworkers. Itō Yunosuke, the novelist, shares a more interesting relationship with Watanabe as the power distribution between them is quite ambiguous. At times, Watanabe shows the experience of age over his young companion during their night out. He brings a sense of maturity to a night that’s meant to bring him back to a youthful time. There are other moments where Itō appears to try and teach Watanabe. He’s teaching him to live his life and not dwell on his sickness. While they party, they lose sight of their age and experience differences and come to an equal level of power. They act as if they’re good friends and forget everything else.

            This kind of friendly relationship can also be seen in films like A Better Tomorrow. Here, the two characters Sung Tse-Ho and Mark. The difference here is that the two men are roughly the same age and are from the start established as close friends. We see them tickling each other and just generally a lot physically closer to each other than Hollywood would portray an adult relationship between two men. There also never seems to be a dip in the power distribution between the two men. They are staunchly defensive of each other and never consider one to be in a higher position than the other in the crime world. The key tension between the two results from Mark’s willingness to continue the gangster lifestyle and Sung Tse-Ho’s willingness to stop. The resulting tension eventually culminates in Mark’s death as he is shot down. Though by this point Mark has accepted and event tried to defend Sung Tse-Ho’s decision, this near perfect relationship cannot be allowed to continue and the family relationship between Sung Tse-Ho and Sung Tse-Kit is emphasized instead.

            In Korean film, there is a set of relationships that match up with the friendship of Sung Tse-Ho and Mark in terms of their equality. However, the tension bubbling beneath the surface is at such a higher level that the inevitable divide is so much more violent. Joint Security Area highlights a seemingly impossible relationship between a pair of North Korean soldiers and a pair of South Korean Soldiers. The film continually bombards the viewer with examples of the kind of propaganda that leads each side to believe they are the strongest and that the other is weak/evil. As the friendship between the soldiers grows, the tension of the each side’s propaganda still follows them. During the film, the soldiers attempt to play with these notions with scenes like the Choco pie scene where Sergeant Oh jokes that one day North Korea will create the greatest confectionary treats in the world. It’s one of the more believable friendships on film despite the context. Unfortunately as with Sung Tse-Ho and Mark, the friendship doesn’t last as the entrance of a North Korean soldier forces the soldiers to remember their roots and fire at each other.

            Mainland China has the most interesting male relationship in film through Farewell My Concubine. To the director, the pair of Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou are an example of a very close male friendship. As Duan believes, the director is under the impression that Cheng is just obsessed with his role as Duan’s concubine. With this impression we get a very lopsided balance of power between the two despite their supposed friendship. Duan is represented as the king while Cheng is the concubine, appearing more as a servant than as a partner. Viewers, particularly in the West, tend to come away with the impression that Cheng and Duan were in a romantic relationship. Cheng appears jealous of Juxian, not because of Duan spending more time with her, but more because of the reason that Juxian has married Duan. It seems clear from their constant physical closeness in their youth to Cheng’s obsession of Duan that Cheng at least wanted something more than a friendship from Duan. In their youth, they share power as they watch out for each other and try to protect each other from the rough leadership of the opera school masters. However, when Duan marries Juxian, the two begin to drift apart until they meet the same fate as the men of J.S.A. and A Better Tomorrow where one of the two loses his life.

            In presenting a heroic figure, East Asian film tends to favor a strong independent hero as seen in the Japanese and Hong Kong films so as to condense his level of power. Yet when a friendship needs to be presented, male bonding is shown to be much more tightly knit in comparison to Hollywood film. The relationships of the men in A Better Tomorrow, J.S.A., and Farewell My Concubine may be ill-fated, but there’s no denying the level of balance that can occur between them in their prime. The closeness almost reaches homo-erotic levels (in some films more than others), but within the region it is rarely thought of as more than a close relationship, something that really couldn’t be done well in Western film.

            

Women in Sandakan 8 and Princess Mononoke

            Films have an unfortunate tendency to use women’s bodies as additional visual entertainment for male audiences. However, I believe Sandakan 8 and Princess Mononoke are two examples of films that present women that are interesting regardless of their appearance onscreen. Each film takes their own approach to expressing issues with the position of women in society and the female characters of these two films represent completely different backgrounds and conditions.

            The key female roles in Sandakan 8 are Keiko and Osaki. Osaki is the character I believe people would most generally remember from this film as the plot is essentially concerned more with Osaki’s life than Keiko’s. Osaki is an interesting character because the film leaves us with the impression that she is tricked into her oppressive environment. While she did choose to leave in order to get money for her family, she was unlike a character such as Songlian from Raise the Red Lantern who chose a life she knew would be troubled in order to help her family. Initially, this seems to place Osaki as a somewhat weaker female character, but in actuality she chooses to fight her situation more than Songlian.

            Osaki vehemently refuses to have sex with the first client she is given. It is only after multiple clients with seemingly no one around to take her side that Osaki starts to lose the will to fight. She’s also really not sexualized to any degree as Songlian is in the first couple of nights as she’s given a soft focus shot with her sitting there on the bed. The camera essentially maintains our connection with Osaki as a person to place ourselves in as we constantly follow behind her and limit the amount of shots that “gaze” upon her. Osaki also manages to turn the tables a little when she takes a dominant position with the boy who visits her because she is Japanese. The boy doesn’t push her for sex like the other clients and Osaki instead attempts to get him to stay and sleep with her.

            Within the prostitution house, we get a little bit of a look at female camaraderie in film. Osaki doesn’t appear to make any strong friendships, but the women are distraught when one gets sent away to a new location. Actually, when Osaki initially arrives, the women already in the house seem hardly helpful as they give her a false sense of security that everything will be fine. The women at the beginning of Osaki’s time at the house almost seem to enjoy what they do. The strongest female connection we get within Osaki’s story is between her and the older mentor figure that watches over the girls at the house. Only near the end of her time at the house do we get this maternal figure that keeps Osaki’s hope alive until she passes away and Osaki is left to defend herself again. She gets the chance to return the favor when she becomes the maternal figure to Keiko.

            Keiko herself is a character that I wish saw a bit more development in Sandakan 8. We get the sense that she’s a strong female character mostly just from learning that she’s a journalist working to get this story about Osaki and women like her all on her own. I don’t think she really gets a chance to make a stand somewhere for what she believes in. She’s primarily the recorder of Osaki’s vibrant story. It is important to look at how much she cares about Osaki that she tells her she stayed to get a story from her. In a way she was sort of using Osaki’s pain for journalistic achievement and she admits this courageously to Osaki. I suppose in a way, she is bringing Osaki’s story to the surface in order to make a statement about how these women were treated.

            Though Osaki is ostracized for a life she was forced into, Keiko seems to be fairly well off and (at least in the film) she appears to work on even ground with the men in her life as can be seen when she leads a group to find the graves Osaki mentioned in her story. It’s odd then that the film seems to put an emphasis on the past and less on a continuing story of female oppression. There is the scene where Keiko is almost raped by a strange man that wanders onto Osaki’s property, but all in all Keiko doesn’t seem to suffer much of the same oppression as Osaki. Her husband appears to respect her as do her coworkers. The only negative reception she gets is from the local people who don’t approve of her journalistic ways.

            Princess Mononoke offers the same kind of strong interesting females, albeit under completely different conditions. First, there’s the princess herself, San. San is odd in that she really doesn’t have much of a character. She barely speaks and her expressions mostly consist of disdainful looks aimed at Ashitaka and the people of Irontown. Still, she differs from the average film female in that she really is not presented as attractive visual “eye candy.” Some may see her as cute, but you really have to keep in mind the first image the viewer gets of San is her sucking and spitting out blood from a giant wolf. This doesn’t even qualify as sexualized vampire material. San is drawing blood from her mother with her mouth. Also, throughout most of the beginning of the film, she wears an ambiguous mask that effectively hides the fact that she is female. Her angry disposition towards Ashitaka and the Irontown residents may lead some to call her a femme fatale figure of the film noir fame. She is aggressive towards the male characters and doesn’t appear to back down. However, unlike those typical femme fatale figures, she is purely a figure of rage. She never softens at any point. Even by the end of the film, she hasn’t really changed her stance about the forest or about humans (no one in the film truly seems to change their ways). She mutually agrees to part ways with Ashitaka and all we’re left with is the notion that she probably won’t attack Ashitaka again. If Irontown proves to be a problem again, I doubt it will take her long to strike back.  

            Lady Eboshi of Irontown, is a bit more developed as a female character. She’s not the typical greedy film villain trying to extend her reach to all she can see. She takes care of the lepers, gives the women positions to work in the forge, and watches over her men in battle (to some degree at least). Though some may quickly denounce Eboshi as manipulating these people for ulterior motives, I can’t shake the feeling that all she does concerning the forest is really in the best interest of getting Irontown and its people to flourish. There’s valuable resources in the forest and she wants Irontown to grow. When San and the forest creatures attack, Eboshi is incited even more to lash back and quell the forces of the forest. They present a danger to Eboshi’s people and she wants to minimize that danger. When Jigo asks for her to assist him in killing the forest spirit, Eboshi is ready to assist him probably because she believes in doing so she can effectively stop the legions of the forest from attacking Irontown. 

Eboshi could also be a maternal figure, but to me she’s a little too cold to appear as a mother to anyone in Irontown. This is what makes her so unique. She doesn’t seem to fit into any one stereotype. To return to the idea of sexualized women onscreen, Eboshi’s dress is so conservative and her personality is so fierce, that there’s little there to focus a “male gaze” upon.  The only issue with Eboshi as a female character is that there is really little about her that is female. It’s as if she shed everything female in order to maintain her power, which could be a statement about how women have to adapt within a patriarchy. Eboshi just isn’t quite the same as Osaki who manages to remain distinctly female and have a level of courage and strength that separates her from stereotypical female film roles.

            The real difference between these two films in portraying women is that one of them, Sandakan 8, is about the real story of a historical woman. Therefore, Osaki is just much more of a strong believable female character than any of the female characters in Princess Mononoke. San and Eboshi are still interesting in how they deviate from typical female roles in film, but they’re still fictional and there’s the catch that they were created from a male mind. Yes, Sandakan 8 had a male director, but it was based on the work of a female writer that captured the history of a real historical woman that really went through the events of the film. Fictional characters just can’t match up with that kind of realism from a film like Sandakan 8.

            

Farewell My Concubine's Love Triangle through 

Mise-en-scene

Farewell My Concubine can be said to focus on a love triangle of sorts between the characters of Juxian, Dieyi, and Xiaolou. The mise-en-scene in this film emphasizes the level of balance between all three characters that swings precariously back and forth throughout.

Most of the film shows the balance between the main characters largely through a black and white costume motif.

This is a shot from relatively early on in the film when both Dieyi and Xiaolou are fairly balanced in their relationship. They both wear pure white, the area is bathed in white light, and the shot is almost perfectly balanced with the two men sitting at their desks. However, the gender roles of a man and a woman together are still emphasized to a degree with Dieyi’s side showcasing more vibrant colors of yellow and red whereas Xiaolou’s side is composed entirely of a monotone white.

            One of the first scenes that has all three characters together comes when Dieyi first meets Juxian. Xiaolou is placed between the two of them and it’s important to note how Dieyi is still in his concubine costume. Through a static look at this shot we can see in physical terms the choice facing Xiaolou between his two “women”. It is important to keep in mind how Dieyi is in his concubine costume for most of the middle section of this film because it keeps in mind the opinion Xiaolou has that Dieyi is simply obsessed with the part of Concubine Yu. What’s odd about this particular scene is how Dieyi is portrayed as more stereotypically feminine than Juxian. Juxian has a fairly conservative dress to her while Dieyi has an ornate headpiece with a vibrant dress (composed of yellows and reds as we saw earlier around the shot of his desk) and very stylized makeup covering his face. We can also tell in this scene how each of the three will carry on their attitudes toward the love triangle in the future. Xiaolou has a very oblivious look on his face as he scans Dieyi trying to figure out why his friend seems so resilient to Juxian’s presence. He maintains this oblivious nature about Dieyi’s feelings throughout the film, arguably up to and including the end where he doesn’t realize what Dieyi is doing with his sword. Dieyi has a combination of restraint and bitterness enmeshed in his expression. Throughout the film his bitterness often overtakes him and becomes immediately apparent in his expressions. Juxian has a sort of half smile as she does throughout the film where she tries and fails to make peace with Dieyi.  Notice also hos Juxian and Xiaolou differ in terms of color scheme compared to Dieyi. Juxian and Xiaolou wear a balance of black and white portraying them as the more reasonable figures while Dieyi is ostracized.

           

            In this shot we see another way in which there is an attempt at showing the relationship between all three main characters through a single shot where they all simultaneously appear. To start with we have the reappearing color scheme where Xiaolou and Juxian are dressed in pure white clothing and Dieyi appears in direct contrast in a black suit, making him out to be a “black sheep” of sorts. Also, we see here that Xiaolou is glaring down at Dieyi, taking the most aggressive position in this shot. In a way, he almost looks like a father figure about to scold his child Dieyi. Dieyi is positioned at a significantly lower spot in comparison to the other two. It is important to note that within the context of the story Dieyi had arrived before Juxian and Juxian was purposely placed into this position when she arrived. Juxian holds her hands out in what can be seen as a sort of comforting motion. Juxian in this scene and in almost all of her other scenes always seems to take on a maternal figure instead of a sexualized figure. She is always dressed quite modestly and is always seen taking care of the other men.

 

This shot in particular epitomizes the image of Juxian as a motherly figure as she reaches out to Dieyi to wipe Xiaolou’s spit from his face.

This shot lends another strong image of Dieyi as a child and Xiaolou and Juxian as parental figures, particularly with Dieyi’s downcast head signifying a child who feels guilty and the way Juxian is faced towards Xiaolou as she attempts to calm him down in order to spare Dieyi his anger.

We also get scenes like this one where Dieyi and Xiaolou are placed right back into their childhood lives. The color scheme returns but the colors are more muted, drawing more attention to just how all three characters are dressed. What is most interesting here is how now both Dieyi and Xiaolou are portrayed like children while the motherly figure Juxian looks on. The two men are now dressed rather similarly as opposed to Juxian who has a more stereotypical feminine image holding a purge and wearing a dress with her body more visible than in previous outfits. It is important to point out that in terms of the plot this is where Juxian starts to become more separated from the other two, leading to the scene where Xiaolou rejects Juxian in front of the communist party.

            There are two key love relationships to note in this love triangle. Both of which are destroyed by the third party throughout the film. The first pair is between Xiaolou and Dieyi.

This shot emphasizes the effect of Juxian on the relationship between Dieyi and Xiaolou. Her heel shatters the glass near Dieyi’s head exhibiting a subconscious desire to detach Dieyi from Xiaolou. We can also see the stereotypical feminine image of a flower on a garment that is slowly engulfing the picture frame representing Juxian’s creeping influence on the relationship between Dieyi and Xiaolou.

            There is a similar shot that utilizes a picture frame to display the tear between Xiaolou and Juxian.

Though more subtle than a heel through a picture frame, one can still see how the candle purposely reflected in the picture frame divides Juxian and Xiaolou. Notice how the candle edges more towards Xiaolou over Juxian, possibly representing Dieyi’s attachment to Xiaolou over Juxian. Also note how the candle re-introduces the color motif of red and yellow contrasted with black and white.

Within the same scene we get a shot that epitomizes the relationship between all three main characters. The one candle in focus with its large ornate base visible represents Xiaolou. He is the strong sturdy ever present visual to this film that sees much of the misfortune take place around him but does not experience it as the other two characters do. In the foreground we have a second candle representing Dieyi who is like Xiaolou’s candle in some ways, yet smaller and less visible. The base color of Dieyi’s candle almost seems to blend with the dress of Juxian hanging next to it. As for Juxian, her body dangles lifelessly between the two candles reflecting literally how she was killed for getting caught up in the conflict between the two men. Her dangling body also seems to represent the ultimate death in femininity of all forms by the end of the film. Both Juxian and Dieyi’s ideas of femininity seem to be removed by suicide as if femininity couldn’t find its way into the evolving political landscape of China. Within this shot we see the relationships of the three composed together for what is essentially the last time within the film. The black base of Xiaolou’s candle is paired with Juxian’s dangling white feet while Xiaolou and Dieyi are paired together by sharing the red candle base and the yellow flame. All three are eternally linked by their red bodies, arguably symbolizing their link to the land of China itself particularly in terms of its political climate.

Rumble in the Bronx

            Rumble in the Bronx is labeled as a Hong Kong action comedy film directed by Stanley Tong starring Jackie Chan. What is odd about this movie is that it is very easy to forget that this is a Hong Kong film as the entire movie is set in New York and filmed in Vancouver, Canada. Also, Jackie Chan doesn’t have quite the personality that he exhibits in his earlier films like Drunken Master. In this blossay I want to explore how Rumble in the Bronx attempts to maintain the tradition of Hong Kong kung Fu films while meshing with the action crime dramas of the United States.

            First and foremost, it is important to look at how this film was marketed to the American audience. Right on the poster we see “No fear. No stuntman. No equal.” The film is not attempting to sell its plot which is fairly shallow and unimportant. The emphasis is instead placed on the spectacle of Jackie Chan, known extremely well by now in Hong Kong and gaining support in the U.S. Even looking at the back of the DVD (the New Line Cinema edit), the plot summary actually avoids discussing the plot and tells us “To millions of action fans around the world he’s a living legend. If you’ve never seen him before, you’ve never seen action. He’s Jackie Chan and for years he has done something no other action star would dare dream. He’s performed all of his own stunts.” It works on generating excitement from potential American viewers without drawing too much attention to criticizing specific American action stars, potentially putting off American viewers.

            Though the marketing of Rumble in the Bronx deemphasizes the importance of the story (and truly, it does not matter when Jackie Chan is so entertaining on his own), I believe it is still important to analyze how it compares to earlier kung Fu films like Drunken Master. To give a basic plot summary of the film, Jackie Chan plays a Hong Kong cop named Ma Hon Keung who comes to New York for his Uncle’s wedding. In attempting to help out the new owner of a supermarket his uncle has sold, Keung enters into a rivalry with a local biker gang that harasses the store. A fight between two crime syndicates interrupts the rivalry and when a case of diamonds is misplaced in Keung’s neighbor’s apartment, Chan gets roped into a fight with the crime syndicate to protect the handicapped child and his sister living there.

            This crime underworld plot causes me to link this movie more with Fists of Fury or A Better Tomorrow over Drunken Master. Like Fists of Fury, we have a character that only gets linked into dealing with this criminal entity because of a need to protect his family (or in Keung’s case, his neighbors). The biker gang Keung faces in the first half of the movie are cartoonishly bad as were the criminals in Fists of Fury arguably. However, when the crime syndicate moves onto the scene led by a man named White Tiger, the crime syndicate comes across as stylishly violent, keeping in step with John Woo’s gangsters in A Better Tomorrow.

            It is with this appearance of the crime syndicate that causes Rumble in the Bronx to shift away from a standard kung Fu film like Fists of Fury or Drunken Master. With the biker gang onscreen, the film found multiple excuses to do away with guns and maintain the kung Fu style. Fighting with guns seemed to indicate a lack of honor. Keung says during one scene, “You got the guts? Drop the gun.” However, this method seems to lose effectiveness when the crime syndicate become the primary antagonists. They always have their guns raised and Keung is left powerless until he finds a way to distract them. Jackie Chan only uses guns to threaten when he gets his hand on one so it still maintains some distance from movies like A Better Tomorrow. It’s also worth noting that no one else can perform kung Fu in this movie. There are no one-on-one kung Fu fights as we saw in Fists of Fury and Drunken Master. The movie is set-piece after set-piece to display Jackie Chan’s stunt work. For this reason it’s hard to call this movie a kung Fu film. It’s less about kung Fu and more about Jackie Chan’s prop combat and epic stunts with occasional gun fights thrown in.

In terms of Jackie Chan’s character, what is immediately noticeable when watching Rumble in the Bronx is how mature and polite Chan’s character Ma Hon Keung is compared to Wong Fei-Hung. He has a couple goofy scenes like the mirror gag early in the film at the supermarket and when he learns his new aunt is black and not Asian. Keung also starts out skilled in martial arts and ends just as skilled in martial arts. He is not taught by a teacher and does not learn to improve his skills in any way. It’s hard to place exactly what Keung’s arc is and if it even matters. One could say his arc is learning to fit in with American society, but that seems to happen almost instantaneously. Most of the characters seem to be Chinese and the characters that aren’t seem to draw little attention to his race other than occasionally referring to him as the Chinaman. Other than this, there are no implications of direct attacks on him or people around him because of their race.

In talking about race in this film, it is interesting to analyze how the film maintains the feeling of a Hong Kong film despite the setting. To start with, there are a lot of Hong Kong actors involved in the film. There are a few white actors, but it appears that as with the Hong Kong actors, they were originally speaking Cantonese. In each scene, it’s hard to shake the feeling that every character was dubbed in over in English despite the fact that each of these characters should have been speaking English anyway despite the location. However, it is worth noting that there are a few scenes where they actually draw attention to the fact that the actor onscreen is speaking Cantonese. This along with the dubbing quickly makes it difficult to tell what language actors are speaking unless it is explicitly stated and the actors actually start speaking in Cantonese. However, it does help that Jackie Chan actually voices his own lines in the dubbing.

There are a number of minor themes in this film that are also worth mentioning despite the lack of exploration of each one. Gang violence is emphasized quite clearly in the first half of the film before disappearing into a montage of stunts. The scenes where the biker gang attack the supermarket and where they corner Keung are both equally violent. The scene where they corner Keung is particularly noteworthy as the gang takes turns hitting bottles at the wall Keung is pinned up against. Though he dodges the hits, the glass shards tear into Keung leading to a very bloody image by the end of the scene. There is also an interesting theme of family that stems from Keung’s neighbors Danny and Nancy. Nancy is Danny’s older sister and raises him on her own, working as a dancer in a seedy bar the biker gang seems to run. Neither of these situations is fully developed as much as they could have been, but they provide an interesting contrast to Chan’s earlier movies like Drunken Master.

Rumble in the Bronx serves as the perfect transportation film for Jackie Chan to U.S. cinema. The plot may have been lacking, but as the marketing suggests, all you really care about in a Jackie Chan film is how entertaining his stunts are and this movie delivers on that front. In comparison to Drunken Master, Jackie Chan loses a little of his trickster persona in favor of a more mature, but still equally charming character. His trickster nature carries on in his prop-heavy fighting style, but this movie stems away from the need of his character to learn to grow up and act responsible. In this film, Jackie Chan shows he is at the height of his talent and wants to show off just what he can do.