'Rush Hour': The 13 Most Offensive Things About the Premiere
Rush Hour isn’t a terrible show, not really. It may well be the most unnecessary show ever made, though. The original movie spawned three sequels entirely on the names and chemistry of its stars, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. Making a TV version by slotting in a loud black guy and a quiet Chinese guy is about as good an idea as selling a Lamborghini with a Volkswagen Beetle engine.
Here are the 13 most offensive things about the first episode of Rush Hour in order of least to most awful.
1. Detective James Carter (Justin Hires) and Detective Lee (Jon Foo) have only one clue to help them find the enemy hideout: It’s a fantastic noodle joint in Chinatown with a “smoking hot-ass hostess.”
2. “You speak English?” This is an expected callback to the original movie, but it’s still absurd to think that they would ask a visiting officer from Hong Kong who didn’t speak English to team up with someone who didn’t speak Chinese.
3. “You’re on a desk until further notice.” It would be an insult to all clichés to call Rush Hour’s dialogue cliché. Carter’s boss, Captain Cole, all but asks for his gun and badge. That being said, you sort of get the sense that Wendie Malick, who plays the long-suffering Captain (is there any other kind?), knows how low these jokes are and she delivers them with a knowing smile. In an alternate universe, this show is Brooklyn Nine-Nine but with martial arts, and that show is much better.
4. The stolen goods are… terracotta warriors? There are plenty of other things that China has — like heroin? Guns? All the normal things that other countries have to smuggle? If this were the Chinese version of the show, that would be like the bad guys stealing a shipment of hamburgers. Because, y'know, Americans really love burgers — and because that’s all the research the writers got around to doing about America.
5. Captain Cole calls Lee an “Asian Orlando Bloom” — which isn’t really offensive. It’s just wrong. He’s an Asian Hugh Grant.
6. Really? “Smoking hot-ass hostess” twice? Also, you realize that most restaurants hire attractive women as hostesses, right? So you’ve only narrowed your search down to every noodle house in Chinatown?
7. Detective Lee doesn’t have a first name. Nowhere. Not on the show’s website, not on IMDB. Y'know, because all we need to know about him is he’s Asian, kinda like Bruce Lee.
8. “Are you a robot?” One of many “jokes” that Carter makes about Lee — in the grand tradition of jokes about people who are really good students and hard workers. Not crazy racist, but pretty distasteful.
9. Carter mis-hears the crime organization’s name wrong twice: Once as “kung pao” and once as “pai gow.” That’s about a half-step away from the “Ching Chong Ding Dong” joke that got Colbert in hot water.
10. The sappy piano music playing in the background as Sgt. Diaz (Aimee Garcia) explains that Carter just cares too much. Save it for the “very special episode” where they all learn about the dangers of drug use.
11. Three times for “hot-ass hostess”? Kudos, Rush Hour writers. Your mothers must be so proud.
12. The bullpen full of cheering police officers, complete with a sneering Kirk Fox (he really doesn’t like it when Carter successfully fights crime!). Again, this would make perfect sense in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Not here.
13. “It’s raining black people!” This line was in the trailer… for Men in Black. If you’re going to steal a line from a movie, maybe try not to be so conspicuous?
