Rush Hour 2

Brett Ratner’s 2001 film sends Lee and Carter to Hong Kong on a holiday that ends with a bomb at the American embassy, then back to Los Angeles and Las Vegas as the trail leads to counterfeiting. Shooting covered Hong Kong, including the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter and Tsim Sha Tsui police station, plus Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Hu Li, played by Zhang Ziyi, was written as a male character; Ratner rewrote and enlarged it after seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This was Zhang’s first film in English and she did most of her own fighting. The counterfeiting plot had a real cost. Gregg Bilson Jr. of prop house Independent Studio Services says they printed 14 pallet loads of hundred dollar bills, that extras pocketed some during the casino shoot and that within days they were circulating as counterfeit; the Secret Service had the remainder and its files destroyed. It cost 90 million dollars, opened to 67.4 million and made 347.3 million worldwide. A good fit if you will watch Zhang Ziyi as closely as Jackie Chan, knowing the part was written for a man, and want the Hong Kong half actually shot there. Not for you if you need the plot to stand alone; the counterfeiting line mostly carries the pair between fights.