Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
So you’ve probably heard by now the odd news that Lee Byung Hun was going to star in ‘Rush Hour 4‘ with Diddy. Yes, that Diddy.
Hell, LBH’s agency BH Entertainment confirmed he participated…
On April 23, Lee Byung Hun’s management agency BH Entertainment confirmed the actor’s participation in the film. However, the representative said it was impossible to confirm anything further, “It is true that Lee Byung Hun participated in a portion of filming for ‘Rush Hour 4.’ However, due to the contract, we are not able to confirm anything else.”
…but they didn’t confirm he was the star.
And probably for good reason, because the studio New Line Cinema has no idea what the advertisement was about, and neither does pretty much anybody.
A billboard advertising the (fake) buddy cop sequel popped up in tourist-congested Hollywood this week with Combs and Lee replacing Tucker and Jackie Chan for a fourquel titled Rush Hour 4: Face/Off 2.
So stealthily did the ad materialize, not even the bartenders downstairs at Hollywood Blvd. watering hole The Rusty Mullet noticed it had been installed on the rooftop of their building, they told The Daily Beast. Neither did anyone at New Line, the studio behind 1998’s Rush Hour and its two sequels.
Clue #1 to this being fake was seeing the breaking casting news for a gigantic franchise being announced primarily by international K-pop news sites. Clue #2 was the odd subtitle of “Face/Off 2”, which is like they were combining ‘Rush Hour‘ with ‘Face/Off‘, the movie that starred Nicholas Cage and John Travolta. Clue #3 was asking yourself, “Why the fuck would they do this to themselves unless they were making a straight-to-video movie? And if that were the case, why would Lee Byung Hun and Diddy even bother?”
Anyway, the actual ‘Rush Hour 4’ is still being negotiated and they are trying to get Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker back.
As for the real Rush Hour 4, it’s been in development since 2012, when producer Arthur Sarkissian confirmed as much during TCAs, saying, “I am working on Rush Hour 4 right now with Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. I’m trying to do it closer to how I did Rush Hour 1, more down to earth, more gritty, introduce two new characters and make it real the way the first one was. I personally was not happy with the third one.” The third one, which was critically panned, saw Chan and Tucker go to Paris and inexplicably co-starred Roman Polanski. It appeared to have stalled, then last August Chan claimed that he was offered Rush Hour 4 but is holding out for a legit script. “Lately they want to make Rush Hour 4,” Chan said during an audience Q&A in London promoting his film Chinese Zodiac. “I said, ‘No, show me the script first. I don’t need another Rush Hour 4. You need Rush Hour 4. Show me the script.’ I don’t want to do a rubbish script just because they want to make the movie.”
So yeah, Lee Byung Hun and Diddy might be in the movie, but they aren’t starring in it unless this was the worst PR campaign for a major franchise in the history of the universe.
