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No Rush for Chan in China
China is so crowded these days, it can't even squeeze in one more Rush Hour.
Government officials said Tuesday that Rush Hour 3, starring stuntman extraordinaire Jackie Chan, will not be screened in mainland China, where the 53-year-old Hong Kong-born actor is considered a national treasure.
The official word on why the Brett Ratner-directed sequel won't be making it to the big screen is that the country has already imported too many American films this year for it to be a profitable acquisition, but some officials are attributing the ban to government censors, who supposedly understood what was coming out of Chris Tucker's mouth and didn't like it one bit.
Meaning, the film's racial humor, as well as its depiction of a Chinese organized crime family called the Triad, were judged to be anti-Chinese, according to Variety Asia Online, which first reported the likelihood of a ban earlier this week.
China's Film Bureau, known for the short leash it extends to both homegrown and foreign filmmakers in terms of what's considered acceptable content, and which recently edited out scenes of Chow Yun-Fat in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End , saying his character was an insult, has reportedly not asked the producers of Rush Hour 3 to make any changes that would make it more palatable for the censors.
The official word, however, is that China's theaters can't accommodate yet another big Hollywood film right now, having already imported At World's End, Spider-Man 3 and Transformers this summer. Not to mention, the Film Bureau also only accepts about 20 foreign-made films a year and schedules designated blackout periods during which only Chinese-made movies are allowed at the box office.
"We think the market for the movie is relatively weak," Xiao Ping, a VP of imports and exports at the state-run China Film Group, said Tuesday.
"The problem is not the Film Bureau, it is China Film [Group]," Bill Kong, chief of Rush Hour 3's Hong Kong-based distributor, Edko Films, told varietyasiaonline.com. "The schedule is very congested, and American films are doing very well around the world this year. In China especially, that's an understatement."
Kong, who managed to get the first two Rush Hour films screened on the mainland, didn't think that the censors would kick up too much of a fuss, saying "China has seen this kind of stuff before."
But apparently even Chan's influence as one of the country's most beloved movie stars couldn't tip the censors or the quota-makers in his favor. His own company, JC Group, also owns the Chinese and Hong Kong rights to Rush Hour 3 as part of his profit-sharing deal with New Line Cinema, which hasn't yet commented on the embargo.
Rush Hour 3, whose predecessors have grossed more than $500 million worldwide, hits U.S. theaters Aug. 10.
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