"You just assumed."
Seriously, we're meant to be all "Zing! Didn't he just demonstrate your underlying prejudice and automatic stereotyping!", but it's just a cheap shot. Carter asks him if he speaks English, and he replies with nothing but a goofy uncomprehending grin. Any reasonable person would take this as a no; in all actuality, Lee is lying. It's like if someone asked you if you were awake and you replied with a snore — you haven't said no, but you have given a response which means no better than the word would. Then of course it's revealed at the end that Carter speaks Chinese. Which means that when he found out that Lee "didn't" speak English, he could have spoken with him in Chinese but chose not to. Essentially he decided "If this Chinese man who has been brought into this country at short notice for a specific purpose doesn't happen to know our language, screw him". What a pair of assholes.- Also, didn't Carter fail to understand a conversation in Chinese in the second movie? The one with the contact in the restaurant? "Because his mouth is open 24 hours a day."
- Carter only knows a few phrases in Chinese and can't speak it fluently. Watch the sequel, he goes to China and mangles Chinese very badly, even with a Chinese-English dictionary in his hand. As for Lee, it was obvious Carter didn't like him at all from the first time they met, so Lee decided to be a dick to him.
- First thing Carter says to Lee is "please tell me you speak English", then he asks him if he speaks English in a condescending and slightly racist way. It's no wonder Lee decided to get his own back with him.
- The more worrying thing is that Lee is a police officer on the case. Why on Earth would he be so unprofessional to Carter as to pretend he can't speak English and thus be able to advance the case, even if Carter's being a dick to him?
- Lee was there for a case he took very, very seriously. It's possible the moment he met Carter, he almost immediately recognized what kind of police officer was welcoming him and how seriously he was being taken, himself. The first thing Lee seems to think of doing as soon as possible is to ditch the guy and meet someone more useful to meet up with; not bothering responding to Carter's "Do you speak English" tirade was just his way of flat-out not bothering with him, period... and maybe he just wanted to be a dick to him, too, as previously said.
- Lee flat out says that he wanted to let Carter run his mouth to see how full of sh*t Carter really was, s maybe inh is mind he was being professional- assessing the competence of the man seemingly assigned to work with him.
What was up with the phone call Consul Han received just before Soo Yung's kidnapping?
The phone call I'm referring to is the one Han answers, and the person on the other end just hangs up the phone. It's never mentioned again. Red Herring?- As I recall, he got the phone call just as she was leaving, so it might have been to make sure he wasn't in the car with her or something.
- Yeah; it was just a ruse to get him away from the car. They probably had someone watching the house and hung up just as the car left. One has to wonder what would happen if he asked the car to wait for him (unlikely, since he didn't know how long he'd be on the phone, but still possible).
Why did Sang wink at Lee during the standoff at the climax?
- It's to show off the scar he got from Soo Yung's necklace. Still doesn't make sense, though.
- It's a mock "Hey, hows it going" between two old enemies. Sang and Lee know each other, and Sang is bemused that, even if he isn't allowed to just shoot him, he still has a gun to Lee's head, to the head of the detective how keeps getting in his way. He winks because he's enjoying that idea.
- In different cultures, winking can mean different things. In specific Asian cultures, it can be impolite or even offensive. Fridge Brilliance, perhaps?
- His scar still stung. It was bothering him.
- Or... the makeup for the scar was bothering the actor.
Does anyone have an English translation for what Carter was saying to the stewardess at the end of Rush Hour?
Why was Consul Han moving to America with Soo Yung anyway?
From what I gather, it had something to do with the British not ruling over Hong Kong anymore, but I’m not entirely sure how those two events are correlated.