Chan is still one of the most amazing -- and one of the most charming -- physical performers the movies have given us. To him, every object in the physical universe is simply a means of getting from one place to the other. And if that means he has to slide through the narrow opening in a cashier's window as smoothly as soap slipping through your fingers, or run along the side of a moving 18-wheeler while dangling from a cable ... well, some days can get pretty rough. (If somebody could ever conceive a domestic comedy for Chan, it might get huge laughs from his answers to that quintessential sitcom question, "And how was your day, dear?") Chan's physical feats are funny precisely because he isn't cool. You can see the pop-eyed fear in his face with the onset of each new danger as well as the "Oh hell, now what?" exasperation. He seems to be amazing himself as well as us. And he's one of the few performers who are truly lovable (and loved) without ever being icky. You can feel a collective smile going up from audiences when he's on-screen.

The first "Rush Hour" gave Chan his biggest American success (too bad it wasn't the winning "Shanghai Noon," a friendlier, more enjoyable, better picture). But seeing the way Ratner shoots him may give you pause. Considerations are clearly being made for the beating that Chan's body has taken over the years. His physical condition, though, clearly has nothing to do with Ratner's ineptitude in framing the shots -- we often can't see Chan's entire body or the physical layout of a room whose seemingly innocent objects will become his weapons. And Ratner's cutting moves us from one stunt to another before we've had time to savor the first. Chan in motion is speed personified; we don't need quick, flashy editing to rev it up any further. If musicals were still being made, or if dance were still an integral part of movies, nothing would benefit action movies more than directors who had learned how to shoot physical performers. (Flipping the channels last week, I came upon a dance sequence in the old Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy "Living It Up" that was shot with less fuss and more craft than anything I've seen in an action movie in years. And if you can keep the movements of Lewis in full frame, you can probably do the same for Chan.)

There's a new addition to the cast, diminutive Zhang Ziyi as the chief villain's chief muscle. I don't want to fall back on an ethnic stereotype, but there's no getting around it: Ziyi's delicate, tiny features really are that of a porcelain china doll's. The gag here is that she's thoroughly eee-vil. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," which added a layer of art-house respectability to the visceral martial-arts choreography Hong Kong directors like Tsui Hark have been turning out for years, really came fully alive only when Ziyi was on-screen. "Rush Hour 2" perks up, too, whenever she appears. Dressed in the chicest leather outfits, she transmits an ominous stillness that unleashes itself in unbelievably limber high kicks, many of them delivered straight to Tucker's face. Damned if each blow she lands on him doesn't get big laughs. And Tucker plays it exactly right: more disbelieving than hurt, and nearly silent, as if she's knocked the power of speech right out of his noggin. Zhang Ziyi is the classiest thing in "Rush Hour 2." She's malicious, delicious, memorable in the manner of, say, the greatest Bond-movie villains, and with an enormous presence that belies her size. She's the hot chili flakes on this buddy-movie pizza. Z.Z. She's the top.

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