6 Rumble in the USA: Jackie Chan in translation Mark Gallagher Prologue: East is met by West The marketing in the United States of successful stars from other national cinemas has often posed problems for Hollywood studios. The marketing of Asian stars in the United States has been particu- larly difficult, given the limited and often derogatory and patronising connotations of Asianness in US culture. Moreover, North American cultural stereotypes about Asians typically fail to make distinctions between national or ethnic groups, corralling Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and other groups into an undifferentiated, exotic mass. In Hollywood cinema since the 1930s, Asian male stars have appeared in a narrow range of roles, all circulating around a similar code of honour, tradition and family obligation: for example, Toshiro Mifune’s brooding patriarchs in Grand Prix (1966) and The Challenge (1982), and Bruce Lee’s scowling kung-fu master in Enter the Dragon (1973). Roles for Asian women, by comparison, have until recently been limited to three principal types: the diabolical ‘dragon lady’ (e.g., Anna May Wong in Shanghai Express (1932)), the happy-go-lucky prostitute (for example, Nancy Kwan in The World of Suzie Wong (1960)), and the sheltered ‘flower of the Orient’ (such as Machiko Kyo in Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)). 1 Because of restrictive cultural and generic conventions with regard to Asian- ness (and non-whiteness generally), Hollywood studios produced virtually no films with Asian leads between 1973, when Enter the Dragon appeared, and 1998, when Hong Kong stars Chow Yun-Fat and Jackie Chan made their respective English-language debuts in The Replacement Killers and Rush Hour. 2 Not surprisingly, all three of these films feature briskly paced action narratives geared to young and urban audiences. 3