DVDs We Love: Rush Hour 2 (2001)

This should be an easy transition: as you know, we've spent the last few weeks on Code Redd Net revisiting some Classic Chan films. Now we return with a new recurring feature, one that aims to spotlight some of the best, most valuable and most interesting DVDs/Blu-rays on the market. Too often films released for home viewing provide little incentive for purchase beyond the quality of the film it contains. Our purpose here is to draw your attention to those discs laden with special features, special features that make repeated viewings worthwhile, that keep the DVD/Blu-ray in question spinning in your player for years. To that end, we can find no better way to kick things off than by returning to Rush Hour 2. In addition to being a beloved CRN Awards winner and longtime site/blog staple, it's also one of our favorite DVDs ever released. Find out why below.

Ricky, you sly son of a gun, just look at you.

Rush Hour 2 is not the best Jackie Chan film. In fact, looking over the items chronicled in our recent Classic Chan series, arguably eight of those ten films feature better fights, better stunts, and overall a more competent use of Chan's physical abilities. What those films lack, though, is the sheen of Rush Hour 2, its efficiency of storytelling and style. Undeniably, Rush Hour 2 is lean Hollywood filmmaking, all its excesses contained in 90 minutes and rounded off by the credits. Hollywood is at its best when taking something mediocre and inflating it to the absolute limit, usually via astronomical production values. So while Chan's choreography is below average in this film, so much else around him is of a higher quality (everything from the lighting, the sets, the cameras, to the film stock itself) that we can temporarily forget the handcuffs put on our favorite action star. It's a decent enough compromise for the Chan enthusiast and the casual viewer, I suppose.

Besides the quality of the film, the DVD for Rush Hour 2 really delivers the goods. As part of the abandoned Infinifilm brand of New Line, the Rush Hour 2 disc is loaded with stuff:

• Commentary with director Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson
• Featurettes: "Making Magic Out of Mire", "Fashion of Rush Hour 2", "Jackie Chan's Hong Kong Introduction", "Culture Clash: West Meets East", "Language Barrier", "Attaining International Stardom", "Kung Fu Choreography".
• Evolution of a Scene
• Visual Effects Deconstruction
• Deleted Scenes/Outtakes (with optional director/writer commentary)
• Theatrical Trailers
• Cast and Crew bios
• Fact Track
• DVD-rom with a script you can read alongside film
• as well as the usual plethora of language/subtitle options and chapter selection

This may not sound that impressive at first, but the DVD's Infinifilm option integrates almost every one of these elements into the film's presentation. Menus pop up onscreen, inviting you to watch short clips, snipped from the full featurettes listed above that deal directly with the scene.

In this example, the massage parlor fight is supplemented with material describing its construction. Play the clip and the disc returns you to the film at exactly the same point you were at before. Though the disc obviously needs a few seconds to gather up the selected data after you click an option, and a few more to get you back, it's nothing too jarring; and it helps that the clips are usually interesting and engage you more thoroughly with the film. Certainly the Infinifilm feature could become annoying for those watching the film for the first time, but it's not the default option on the disc. For those looking for a reason to watch it again, though, it's a perfect means to do so.

Outside of the Infinifilm, you can access all the supplemental material individually and in full. Though there's plenty of flatulent industry fluff, like "Fashion of Rush Hour 2" and "Making Magic Out of Mire", many of the other features are worth watching. Evolution of a Scene, essentially rehearsal footage of some of the more expensive/explosive scenes, is an interesting opportunity to see Jackie's method of choreography at work. I always appreciate the inclusion of deleted scenes, though in this case they were clearly deleted for a reason; same goes for the outtakes, really.

Brett Ratner and his screenwriter writer provide feature-length commentary and it's mostly banal stuff that gets regurgitated elsewhere on the disc. There's a bit too much gossip, and way too much Hollywood name-dropping, but on occasion they provide an insight or tow. One of the more intriguing special features is the Fact Track (above), an option that places a running stream of incidental notes on the lower part of the screen. These include useful biographical bits on Chan, Tucker, and the minor or incidental characters that surround them, as well as trivia regarding the scenery, shooting locations, and Snoopy's height relative to Tucker's racially-charged estimation of Chan's height. Like the Infinifilm option, though perhaps less exciting visually, Fact Track is yet another way to make a repeated viewing of the film seem novel. Strangely enough, it's possible to watch the film with the Fact Track, commentary, and Infinifilm features all running at the same time! It's a bit too much for the senses, I think, but it nonetheless proves that the disc is loaded not only with special features, but with a highly customizable engagement with them.

All things considered, the Rush Hour 2 Infinifilm DVD is one loaded with replay value. By my count, there's at least four-five different ways to watch the film: by itself, with Infinifilm, with commentary, with the fact track, and with some combination of the above options. This is in addition to the standalone full features accessible via the menu. It's too bad New Line gave up on the Infinifilm brand, because I wish all my DVDs/Blu-rays had this kind of depth.

Get the DVD on Amazon for $.01 right here (and make sure you follow the link to the Infinifilm product specifically, as there's another, stripped-down and feature-less version of the disc in circulation).