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Ilinx in Rush Hour and Showtime

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Homo Ludens as a Comic Character in Selected American Films

Part of the book series: Second Language Learning and Teaching ((ILC))

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Abstract

As a category of game and playfulness, ilinx is very frequently represented in comedies, especially in action comedies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to Gabbard, the film is notable because, “a black actor played the role usually assigned to a white actor in an interracial buddy film” whereby the other part was given to “a Chinese actor with broken English and a long history of making films that criticized Western imperialism.” (2008, p. 213).

  2. 2.

    Running up a wall or hanging without protection at great heights (e.g. from a “Hollywood” street sign in Rush Hour or from a bamboo scaffolding in Rush Hour 2) are good examples, but cannot compare with Chan’s other stunts which he performed himself in his earlier films, such as sliding down Christmas decorations in a mall a hundred feet down in Police Story [1985], or sliding down over twenty stories of a steep wall of a skyscraper in Rotterdam, Holland (Who Am I? [1998]).

  3. 3.

    According to Wonham, as early as “by the end of the eighteenth century Americans were already notorious for their seemingly irrational and depraved love of exaggeration” (1993, p. 17).

  4. 4.

    Carter never tries to be modest about his victories. When Carter stops Clive by shooting at his car until it explodes, he screams in triumph and starts to dance to the tune of Michael Jackson’s song. In a later scene, when Carter disarms and knocks out a henchman, he boasts to the unconscious man “tell your friends about me!”.

  5. 5.

    It should be noted that a very similar scene could be observed in Rush Hour, when Carter posed for the cameras, giving Lee the opportunity to flee.

  6. 6.

    The character of “Dirty” Harry Callahan also shot a camera in the film The Dead Pool (1988).

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Correspondence to Artur Skweres .

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Skweres, A. (2017). Ilinx in Rush Hour and Showtime . In: Homo Ludens as a Comic Character in Selected American Films. Second Language Learning and Teaching(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47967-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47967-5_5

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