ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, February 24, 1996            TAG: 9602260016
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: ROBERT W. BUTLER KANSAS CITY STAR 

NOT ENOUGH PUNCH FROM `RUMBLE IN BROOKLYN'

For nearly 25 years, Hong Kong-based Jackie Chan has mixed awesome martial arts skills with the hilarious derring-do of a latter-day Buster Keaton, making himself Asia's top movie star.

But he's never made a dent in the American market. ``Rumble in the Bronx'' is an undisguised attempt by Chan to appeal to the Yank audience, and although his charms haven't appreciably diminished, his material is about as wretched as you can find.

Oh, well, one doesn't go to a Jackie Chan film for plot or dialogue or supporting performances. You go to see the impish star do impossible stunts and kick, punch and flip his way through spectacularly choreographed brawls. By that criteria ``Rumble in the Bronx'' isn't top-notch Chan (I'd recommend his ``Police Story III - Supercop''), but it'll do.

The wildly implausible plot has our hero coming to NYC to attend his uncle's wedding. He finds himself working as stock boy-security guard at a Chinese grocery, running afoul of a motorcycle gang and a bunch of high-tech diamond thieves, and befriending an orphaned kid in a wheelchair who just happens to have a gorgeous go-go dancing older sister.

With the exception of Chan, who radiates boyish energy and charm despite his 40-something age, the performers are uniformly incompetent and the English dialogue laughably inept.

This all makes for a rather discombobulated fish-out-of-water atmosphere made even weirder because, aside from a couple of establishing shots of the Manhattan skyline, director Stanley Tong filmed ``Rumble in the Bronx'' in Vancouver. That explains the mountains.

Chan's stunts are elaborate and genuinely dangerous. His films traditionally close with a collection of outtakes - bits that went wrong, close calls and mishaps on the set. This one shows that Chan broke an ankle early in the shooting and spent most of his time in a wheelchair when not in front of the camera. Amazingly, there's no hint that he was disabled in his energetic performance.

Rumble in the

Bronx ** 1/2

A New Line Cinema release playing at Valley View Mall. 90 min. Rated R for profanity, guns and kung-fu violence.

LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  Jackie Chan applies his martial-arts skills to "Rumble 
          in the Bronx." color.