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Brandon Lee's martial arts action movie Rapid Fire paid tribute to several films of action movie legend Jackie Chan in the film's action sequences. Released in 1992, Rapid Fire starred Lee as college student Jake Lo, who finds himself on the run after witnessing a Mafia murder. With stunt coordinator Jeff Imada, Lee also choreographed the many fight scenes of Rapid Fire, with Lee and Imada giving the film a distinctly Hong Kong-style flair well ahead of Chan's breakout in the West.
Rapid Fire first homages Jackie Chan early on in the art gallery shoot when Jake runs an assassin through a glass display on a motorcycle. It was a nod to the past; Chan had executed the same stunt during the climactic mall showdown in his 1985 action-comedy Police Story. Rapid Fire's finale in the criminal compound of Chinese crime boss Kingman Tau (Tzi Ma) would also carry numerous influences from Jackie Chan's work in Police Story.
While fighting a pair of opponents, Lee executes a jump spinning kick and spinning sweep kick combo against them, with Chan having done the same against a pair of enemies in Police Story's mall fight. Going up against another set of opponents, Lee also utilizes a clothing rack as a defensive tool, which Chan had also done in the parallel Police Story battle. In Rapid Fire's penultimate fight scene with Lee and legendary stunt man and martial artist Al Leong as Tau's henchman Minh, Lee and Imada really injected some Jackie Chan-influenced fight choreography.
Following an exchange of Wing Chun-derived punches and traps from Lee's background in Jeet Kune Do, Leong ducks to grab Lee by the waist for a takedown, with Lee striking him in the back and Leong sliding down to Lee's feet to pull his legs from under him. This exact sequence of moves is seen in Chan's fight with Benny "The Jet" Urquidez in Dragons Forever. Rapid Fire also adds one more Chan homage when Leong kicks Lee against a metal gate, with Lee rebounding to punch his opponent. This same exchange is also seen in Chan's fight with Bill "Superfoot" Wallace in his 1985 movie The Protector.
Lee was on a major upward rise in his career when he showed his talent for carrying a martial arts movie with his work in Rapid Fire. Lee's tragic death on the set of The Crow continues to be mourned as the life of a young action star ended far too soon. Though Lee's career was a brief one, his work in movies like Rapid Fire showed the promise he had as a leading man. More than that, his and Imada's fight choreography showed Lee's keen knack for adding the fireworks of Hong Kong action movies into a Hollywood film to really enliven their impact on-screen.
Rapid Fire stands as one of Lee's most beloved performances as the quippy and sardonic Jake Lo. The world will sadly never see the full scope of what Lee's career might have been, or who he might have gone on to influence in turn. However, Rapid Fire will forever stand as a highlight of Brandon Lee's career that also tipped its hat to the Hong Kong work of future Hollywood action hero Jackie Chan.
