There’s many a time in a grocery store or CVS when Fantasy by Mariah Carey comes on, and all I can think of is Rush Hour. It’s 1997, and in the backseat of a car the Chinese consul’s daughter Soo-yung (played by an 11-year-old Julia Hsu) belts sweet fantasy in the only way a Mariah song can be belted, her stone-faced bodyguards in front wading through Los Angeles traffic. To 10-year-old me, who sang about heartbreak and desire with similar vigor in front of her immigrant parents, it was a quintessentially American moment. There’s pure joy in Soo-yung’s face before we cut to the scene at large, as the car is directed to the side. A police car swings in front of them and a man gets out, unflinchingly shoots the bodyguards and abducts Soo-yung.
And thus the crux of the plot in this 1998 action comedy is set in motion. For the rescue-important-person’s-daughter mission, the director, Brett Ratner, offers us the Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan (who by then had gained some US recognition for Rumble in the Bronx) and Chris Tucker (who was already known for House Party 3 and Friday) to save the day.
