Two racist cops walk into a bar. They walk out a little less racist.
That pattern summarizes the crux of most scenes in the Rush Hour trilogy. The two protagonists, an East Asian man and a Black man, fail to see each other. But over the course of the movies, they build a cross-cultural dialogue—and eventually, cross-racial friendship.
Depicting relations between Black and Asian folks on screen remains unusual to this day. This is true even though more conversation between the two communities about internal biases and possible alliances have popped up.
In 2020, limited solidarity at Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate protests hinted at a future renewal in the communities’ connection. But North American media has not kept up or built on the trend.
Instead, we look back to past popular movies that showcased Black and Asian relationships (Mississippi Masala, The Karate Kid 2010 remake, and of course, Rush Hour). From these films, some of the sentiments unearthed in 2020 emerge, namely a look into how both Black and Asian individuals can reckon with bias against each other.
Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 remain interesting today because of how they flip the tropes of the buddy cop movie on its head by bringing racial tensions and cultural boundaries to the forefront of the relationship. Given the historic distrust and animosity between the Black and Asian community and law enforcement, the choice to play with the tropes of the buddy cop movie become even more impactful.
But first, in order to flip the scripts, the movie almost invites the audience to pigeonhole the two main protagonists into racial tropes.
For most of the first movie, Detective Inspector Yan Naing Lee (played by Jackie Chan) falls into the stereotype of the “inscrutable Asian,” where Asians are emotionless creatures who silently plot against Western interests, along with the…
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