Rush Hour 3

[MacGuffin]

Chris Tucker reunites with Jackie Chan for new 'Rush Hour'

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - US actor Chris Tucker will reportedly team up again with Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan for the third installment of the "Rush Hour" franchise.

Filming for "Rush Hour 3" will start next year in France and the United States for a mid-2007 release, according to the trade publication Daily Variety.

The "Rush Hour" action-comedy franchise stars Tucker as a mouthy Los Angeles detective who teams up with Chan's acrobatic Hong Kong cop to crack cases.

The first film was released in 1998 and the 2001 sequel made 329 million dollars worldwide.

[MacGuffin]

POLANSKI RUSHES TO RATNER
Source: CHUD

Last week I sat down in Vegas with Brett Ratner as he was doing a cameo on X3 writer Zak Penn's new improv poker comedy, The Grand. I ended up talking with Ratner for well over an hour, and the conversation is funny, fascinating and revealing. You have to talk to a guy for a long time for him to get his guard down enough to be real, and I think I got to that place with Ratner. It's going to surprise a lot of people – I don't know if it'll change any minds about him, but it'll certainly make you rethink him.

One of the topics we covered was Rush Hour 3, which starts shooting in 8 weeks and is set in France. Ratner ended up dropping some news about the casting of that film – including the fact that legendary director Roman Polanski will be in it.

"Hopefully Polanski's going to act in Rush Hour 3, so I created a part for him," said Ratner. "I was just having lunch with him, and I said, 'Oh my God, you have to be in Rush Hour!' We're shooting in Paris, so it's perfect."

I asked him if it would be intimidating directing the guy who directed Nicholson in Chinatown. "He treats me as an equal, he loves my movies, he's a fan. If I was directing Harry Knowles from Aint It Cool News I wouldn't feel very comfortable – he would be looking at me sideways the whole time. But Polanksi gives me respect and admiration and love, so I'm fearless."

Ratner also revealed another actor, but kept his lead French actress a secret. "I'm using Yvan Attel, who directed My Wife is an Actress, which is a fucking brilliant French movie that Spielberg has the remake rights to. He was in Munich too. I haven't told anybody who's in the movie yet – there's another brilliant French actress who I can't say yet, but I'm going after her. It's going to be a great cast."

Humongous basketball player Yao Ming's involvement has been on the record – if not officially sealed – for a while now. He told me how he saw Yao Ming's scene working. "[E]very scene in [my] movie comes from another film. I don't want to give everything away but this dream scene I want to do is inspired by when Kareem Abdul-Jabar fought Bruce Lee [in Game of Death]. I want to have the reverse – I want Chris Tucker to fight Yao Ming. As a child I saw Bruce Lee fighting this giant, and I was like, 'Oh my God!'"

This is just the beginning of what we talked about – come back Monday for Ratner's theories on what happened to Superman Returns, why some people don't like him, his relationship with Harry Knowles, his remake of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and much more!

[polkablues]

I can watch Paul Thomas Anderson's films and tell you in every scene what movie he's taking from.  I know those references, but that's kind of blatant stuff that he does because he wants to show you he loves those movies.  My stuff is subliminal.  You would never even pick it up, really.  It's very subtle stuff. 

"[E]very scene in [my] movie comes from another film. I don't want to give everything away but this dream scene I want to do is inspired by when Kareem Abdul-Jabar fought Bruce Lee [in Game of Death]. I want to have the reverse – I want Chris Tucker to fight Yao Ming. As a child I saw Bruce Lee fighting this giant, and I was like, 'Oh my God!'"

[MacGuffin]

Actor rejects Rush Hour 3 offer
Source: Moviehole

A month or two ago, Director Brett Ratner mentioned he'd love to get rising martial-arts movie star Tony Jaa ("Ong Bak") in "Rush Hour 3". Today, Jaa tells Rotten Tomatoes that that won't be happening.

According to the actor, Ratner did call, and there were talks about him joining the production, but due to scheduling difficulties (he's busy doing the "Ong Bak" sequel), they just couldn't work it out.

No doubt Ratner wanted Jaa to play a villain in the film, which pits sirs Chan and Tucker against a Chinese Triad crew.

The director is also believed to be in talks with former "Seinfeld" star Michael Richards, his "X-Men 3" star Ian McKellen, Vinnie Jones and director Roman Polanski about playing parts in the sequel.

[MacGuffin]

Ratner Reveals More Rush Hour 3 Cast
Source: USA Today

USA Today caught up with Rush Hour 3 director Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand), who revealed more cast members:

"In the first movie Jackie was a fish out of water (in L.A), then Chris was one in the second movie (in Hong Kong). Now they are both fish out of water," says director Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand). Targeted for an August 2007 release, Rush Hour 3's villains include one played by Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai). "He's a brilliant actor with a martial arts background who has done some incredible films," Ratner says. Also in the cast: Max Von Sydow and Roman Polanski.

The cast also includes Vinnie Jones, Yvan Attel, Roselyn Sanchez and Yao Ming.

[pete]

yeah henry sanada is one of the rarest actors in the world: a royal shakespeare company-trained actor who grew up being trained by sonny chiba.  truly a master at both acting and fighting.  twilight samurai is a testament of that.  mifune may be charming, but sanada's got skills.

[MacGuffin]

'Rush Hour 3': needs more Polanski
As he readies the Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker threequel Jeff Nathanson gets a request to create a role for the legendary director.
Source: Los Angeles Times

Just two months before principal photography was meant to commence in Paris on the latest "Rush Hour" sequel, director Brett Ratner came to screenwriter Jeff Nathanson ("Catch Me If You Can") and informed him that he wanted a part written into the Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker action-comedy franchise for Roman Polanski.

Roman Polanski? The guy who wrote and/or directed "Repulsion," "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown," three of the bleakest assessments of human nature ever put on film ... in "Rush Hour 3"?

What's next? Martin Scorsese playing the heavy in the next "Charlie's Angels" sequel?

"Everyone said, 'Yeah, right — Roman Polanski's gonna be in 'Rush Hour 3,' " Nathanson recalls. "We kind of ignored it." But Ratner kept pestering him, claiming that Polanski, a friend of the director's, enjoyed the previous films and really wanted to play a part. So Nathanson drew up several potential characters and scenarios until he and Ratner decided that "the role of a very sadistic French police officer would suit him."

The producers and studio executives remained skeptical. " 'It'll never happen,' " Nathanson remembers them saying. "Nobody believes that there will be a day when you're going to walk onto the set and there's gonna be Roman Polanski, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker."

Well, until a few weeks ago, when the 73-year-old Oscar-winning director ("The Pianist"), film icon and famous fugitive showed up on the Paris set one day — prepared, curious, and ready to dissect every scene and prop.

Polanski has been in front of the lens before, most notably as the jittery, menacing thug in "Chinatown" who taunts Jack Nicholson with "You are a very nosy fellow, kitty cat ... " before picking the actor's nose with a switchblade.

Sounds like just the guy you want to play off the crazy high jinks of Mssrs. Chan and Tucker.

"The way 'Rush Hour' movies are done, you can't take yourself too seriously," says Nathanson, who avoided writing any ironic or self-referential dialogue that would wink at Polanski's storied personal or professional past. "You have to have a sense of humor about it. There's really no other way to approach these things as a writer, because it is what it is. Roman had that attitude, which was to just go for it and not worry so much about where he lands because there's a safety net in being in something that's really just meant for people to go and have a good time."

Nathanson, who wrote the second "Rush Hour" film and had a hand in the first, has absorbed all this in mostly stoic fashion, despite the "surreal and odd" sensation he felt at having Polanski, a filmmaking idol, approach him to discuss the lines he had written.

"If you hang around Brett Ratner enough," he says with a kind of verbal shrug, "odd situations tend to follow."

[MacGuffin]

[MacGuffin]

Teaser Trailer

[Neil]

"directed by brett ratner"

It has now become a feature

[hedwig]

still movie of the decade.

[A Matter Of Chance]

ratner will win an oscar for this....and it will be fore best foreign film

[MacGuffin]

STARS' EGO TRIPS TRIP UP FLICKS
Source: New York Post

Chris Tucker, the star whose large paycheck and ego have been well-documented, has been demanding script changes in "Rush Hour 3."

"He won't come out of his trailer until the script is up to his standards," giggled one spy on the set in Santa Ana. "What, $25 million isn't enough to just do your job and act?" A rep for Tucker didn't return calls.

On the same set, horndog director Brett Ratner "sends an assistant named Scott around to every female extra, collecting phone numbers in a too obvious, not-so-suave way," the source said. "Scott commands these $150-a-day actress-hopefuls to give him their phone numbers simply because 'the director wants it.' "

A rep for Ratner, who has dated Rebecca Gayheart and Serena Williams, said, "That's ridiculous. If Brett wants a phone number, he'll get it himself."

[cron]

[MacGuffin]

Jackie Chan has newfound respect for dramatic directors doing action films 

HONG KONG (AP) - Jackie Chan used to think that directors of romance films or political thrillers had no business making the kind of action movies that he specializes in.

But not any more. "I used to think that directors who shoot dramatic films cannot film action," Chan wrote on his website Thursday.

"(But) after seeing films made by Ang Lee ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") and Zhang Yimou ("Hero"), I realized that I was wrong," he said, referring to kung fu epics made by two of the most famous directors in ethnic Chinese cinema.

"Because of their dramatic background and their incredible talent, they are able to bring a unique perspective when it comes to filming action scenes. While we create comedic action, they are able to create dramatic action," Chan wrote.

Chan is currently filming the third instalment of the "Rush Hour" action-comedy series, and co-ordinates the action sequences. He said he appreciates director Brett Ratner's input during action-scene filming.

"Even though Brett doesn't know much about directing action, he does notice details that help us improve the scene. I appreciate his attentiveness when we shoot action scenes and his feedback," Chan said.