Rumble in the Bronx

Actually shot in Vancouver, this is the Jackie Chan movie which finally cracked the US market, grossing some $28m on first release. Chan plays a Hong Kong cop visiting NYC for an uncle's wedding; he tangles with a multi-ethnic street gang and then teams up with them to defeat ultra-vicious Mafia types bent on retrieving some stolen gems. Not the best of Chan's large-scale action comedies: the big set-pieces (the demolition of a city building, a hovercraft rampage through downtown streets) strain for effect. But Chan's insistence on his own fallibility and vulnerability, taken with virtuoso scenes like the fight involving 101 domestic appliances, shows why he means more to his countless fans than six US action stars put together.