Jackie Chan plays off duty Hong Kong policeman Keung who travels to New York (or Vancouver, rather, doubling for The Bronx) to attend his uncle’s wedding. But his vacation is extended when he agrees to help out the new owner of his uncle’s convenience store, played by Anita Mui. Battle soon commences as street punks terrorise the store, forcing Keung to fight back in an orgy of stylised violence. You could write the story on a matchbox, so Stanley Tong conjures up more excuses for carnage: there is a disabled boy with stolen diamonds stashed in his wheelchair, and Chan starts an affair with the gang leader’s dame. All subplots help to keep the action rolling, the main delights being an expertly choreographed confrontation in the group’s skuzzy lair and a zany hovercraft finale. The performances may be pedestrian but this is still a corker of an action film. A Hong Kong film tailored to suit a western palate (hence the English language and mostly Caucasian cast), the film was dubbed and re-edited and picked up by New Line Cinema in the US, becoming a huge success in 1996. Indeed, it was Rumble in the Bronx, more than any other film, which would prove to be Jackie Chan’s stepping stone to long-awaited mainstream superstardom.

AKA: Red Bronx