Trivia / Rush Hour

The Movies

• Actor-Inspired Element: Carter's line "Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth" was taken from something Jackie Chan actually said during rehearsing with Chris Tucker.
• Adored by the Network: The trilogy comes on local TV every month, especially the first film.
  • In 2018, which was the 20th anniversary of the first film, both the Viacom-CBS and NBC-Universal channels broadcast it nearly 5 times each month.
  • Downplayed for 2 in 2019, which is quite strange because whenever the first film comes on, the third film comes after it, ignoring the timeline.
• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Don Cheadle took the cameo in 2 on the condition he got to have a fight scene with Jackie Chan.
  • Jackie himself has suggested that he would agree to a fourth movie under the condition that Chris returns with him.
• Banned in China: A literal example - the third movie's theatrical release in China was pulled due to the sub-plot of a Chinese triad operating indiscriminately in Europe and the fact that China only allows 20 foreign films to air in their theaters back in the late-2000s. This is especially odd despite the presence of Jackie Chan, as well as the previous two movies dealing with Chinese organized crime yet doesn't suffer the same fate.
• Breakthrough Hit: For Brett Ratner.
• The Cast Show Off: In addition to his martial arts prowess, Jackie Chan shows off his singing ability in the second and third films.
• Channel Hop: The screenplay was sold to Hollywood Pictures. After attaching Brett Ratner and developing the project for more than a year, Disney Studios Chief Joe Roth put the project into turnaround, citing concerns about the $34-million budget, and Jackie Chan's appeal to American audiences. At the time, Martin Lawrence was attached to the project. Several studios were interested in acquiring the project. New Line Cinema was confident in Ratner, having done Money Talks with him, so they made a hard commitment to a budget and start date.
• Creator Backlash: Jackie Chan has expressed dissatisfaction with the first film: "I didn't like the movie. I still don't like the movie. I don’t like the way I speak English, and I don’t know what Chris Tucker is saying". Although he respects the box-office success, Chan said he preferred the films he made in his native Hong Kong because they delivered more fight scenes: "If you see my Hong Kong movies, you know what happens: Bam bam bam, always Jackie Chan-style, me, 10 minutes of fighting".
• The Danza: Barely counts as an example. Commander Thomas Griffin is played by Tom Wilkinson, but is only addressed once by his first name.
• Deleted Role: In the second film, Philip Baker Hall filmed a cameo reprising his role as Captain Diel that ended up being cut. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman also filmed a cameo that was cut.
• Development Hell: Rumors of a fourth film being in development have circulated since The New '10s. According to Jackie Chan in 2022, it is still in development.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Chris Tucker got into shape for the film, as he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of Jackie Chan and his stunt team.
  • Noémie Lenoir shaved her head for the third film.
• Enforced Method Acting: In 2, when the stars were hanging from the bamboo wall, Jackie Chan decided to play a prank on the acrophobic Chris Tucker and told him that the stunt people forgot to attach his safety harness. When the already terrified Chris literally started crying, Jackie realized he had gone too far.
• Fake Nationality: Sang, a British Hong Kong, is portrayed by Ken Leung, an American (of Chinese descent).
• Fatal Method Acting: Averted. A stunt nearly crushed Jackie Chan's skull between a pair of metal boxes. They slammed together about a quarter of a second after Jackie's head was clear. If he were any slower, he'd have been dead.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The exterior shots of the Chinese Counsulate in the first film is also used as the exterior shots for the original Wayne Manor in Batman (1966).
• Irony as She Is Cast: In the third film, Lee tells Carter that he doesn't speak French, which is untrue for Jackie Chan in real life.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The second film had a joke where Carter asks to see Isabella's Secret Service badge. When she pulls open her robe to show him, he asks "Let me see that again, I didn't get a good look at that." In the trailer, Carter merely says "Show it again." in a more authoritarian manner.
• Money, Dear Boy:
  • Jackie Chan kept starring in the films because he was offered an "irresistible" paycheck plus a cut of the box office to continue making them. That said, by most accounts, he did enjoy making them (or the sequels, at the very least. Read Creator Backlash above) and built a close rapport with Chris Tucker whilst filming.
  • Chris Tucker himself was this, as he asked $20 million for 2 and $25 million for 3, a salary usually only given to a steadily working big star like Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts, as opposed to a guy whose only appearance outside Rush Hour in the period was a Michael Jackson video.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Noémie Lenoir, Roman Polański, Yvan Attal and Julie Depardieu dubbed their own voices in the French-speaking version of the third movie.
• On-Set Injury: Jackie Chan had a cracked sternum and bruises to his shins from the third movie's stunts. In the credits, there is an outtake where he throws a table backwards with his legs into himself, accidentally, in Genevieve's suite.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Soo Yung was played by Julia Hsu in the first film, and Zhang Jingchu in the third film.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub of the first movie, Carter was voiced by Jesús Barrero; for the second and third movies, Alfonso Obregón Inclán took over the role.
• Promoted Fanboy: Roman Polański was a fan of the first two movies. When it was learned that Rush Hour 3 was set in Paris, he asked Brett Ratner and the producers whether they could give him a small role to appear. They happily complied with his wish.
• Referenced by...: Justine from Are You Seeing Me? can recite much of Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 from memory thanks to her brother's obsession with Jackie Chan.
• Sequel Gap: Rush Hour 3 was released six years after Rush Hour 2.
• Throw It In!: Chris Tucker improvised much of his dialogue, as he normally does in his films. According to Brett Ratner, during the scene at Grauman's where Detective Carter bribes Stucky for information, there was so much improvisation between Tucker and John Hawkes that they almost did not think they could edit it together as a coherent conversation. There are still continuity errors in the dialogue for this reason.
• Troubled Production: The production of the second film went pretty smoothly, but it has become infamous for a single incident that occurred as it was wrapping. One scene involving a bust on a counterfeit ring in Las Vegas was to end with a pile of money going up in flames and $100 million worth of bills floating through the air. The scene was shot without issue, but the prop bills they had used were so convincing that extras and bystanders had picked them up and attempted to use it as actual legal tender on the Vegas Strip and beyond. The Secret Service ended up intervening, accusing the prop maker, Independent Studio Services, of counterfeiting, and forced them to recall and destroy all the money they had sent out to other productions. ISS did manage to survive the ordeal, but not without significant cost. (A rather ironic case of real life imitating art; the film itself centers on the protagonists trying to stop a massive money-laundering scheme, using counterfeit bills closely resembling U.S. legal tender—assisted by a Secret Service agent, no less.)
• Uncredited Role: Philip Baker Hall and Roman Polański in the third film.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were considered for a villain role in Rush Hour 3. Imagine seeing them fight Jackie Chan. Vinnie Jones was also considered.
  • Jerry Lewis was offered the cameo role of Steven Reign in the second film.
  • Ian McKellen was originally offered the role of Varden Reynard in the third film.
  • Chan suggested Ratner to cast Tony Jaa in the third film, as the two stars are fans of each other's work. Ratner was enthusiastic about the idea, but Jaa turned out to be too busy with the grueling production of Ong-Bak 2 and it couldn't happen.
  • Eddie Murphy was also originally supposed to play as Carter in what would've been a notable Casting Gag, but turned the role down to work on Holy Man. Martin Lawrence was attached before dropping out. Dave Chappelle, Chris Farley, Tupac Shakur, Will Smith and Wesley Snipes were also considered.
  • The second film's Big Bad Ricky Tan was originally written as an older character, with Sammo Hung considered for the role.
  • Chris Penn was initially going to reprise his role as Clive in the second film.
  • The character of Kenji was originally conceived as Chinese, with Jet Li considered for the role before Hiroyuki Sanada was cast.

TV Series

• California Doubling: The scenes in Hong Kong were filmed in Los Angeles.
• The Cast Show Off: Jon Foo shows off his martial art skills in the series, being trained in kung-fu and wushu when he was 8 and 15.
• Fake Nationality: British Jon Foo as Chinese Detective Lee, though Foo is of Chinese and Irish descent.
• Friday Night Death Slot: Suffered from a variation of this when it aired in Spain's Antena 3, which uses Thursdays as its particular death slot, in the summer of 2016. And by the summer of 2016, we mean July 6, 2016, which was the night that the network aired the show's first two episodes before yanking it off the schedule due to its dismal ratings. That's right, Rush Hour managed to get itself pulled off the air, airing on its channel's traditional Death Slot, in the middle of the summer season (although to be fair, it was just another misfire on a nightmarish 2016 summer season for Antena 3).
• Screwed by the Network: The advertising for the show was... not great, leading to the announcement of its cancellation being the first that many even heard of the adaptation.