This film came along at a very particular time in the history of the movement (Golden Harvest and the Hong Kong action movie field). During the 70s and 80s the studio, director Stanley Tong and star Jackie Chan and their movies hadn't travelled far beyond their own borders. You had to be a Tarantino-style kung fu nerd to really know and see them all, and the rest of us might have occasionally watched one or two on VHS as kids, but the movie establishment didn't take them seriously.

At this point in history (1996), the exploitation, alternative and previously looked down-upon genres had a new level of cachet in the Pulp Fiction era, so although I'm not really sure of this without a lot of research, I'd bet this was the first Golden Harvest/Tong/Chan production given an American-style budget and filmed in the US.

In later years Hollywood would embrace Chan and the movies would get a lot slicker, but here you can see the fingerprints of the homegrown, Hong Kong industry origins (hackneyed plot, the obtuse emotional touch points like the cute kid, innocent love interest, etc) all over it.

Chan is Keung, who arrives in America to attend the wedding of his beloved and comical Uncle Bill. As Bill is taking off on holidays with his bride to be, Keung agrees to stay behind and help with the handover of Bill's shop, which he's sold to Elaine.

While staying in Uncle Bill's apartment, Keung is horrified to hear an underground motorcycle race coming down the street – heading straight for Uncle Bill's beloved car. Hightailing it down to the street via the fire escape, he stops the riders before they can do any more damage, but makes enemies out of them in the bargain.

They beat Keung to within an inch of his life and he crawls back upstairs to be found by Nancy, one of the gang leader's girlfriends, and her young paraplegic brother Danny, who she's doing her best to take care of by dancing in lingerie bars. They drag Keung inside and nurse him back to health.

At the same time, one of the biker gang scumbags has become embroiled in a diamond heist gone bad by stealing the loot and hiding it in Danny and Nancy's apartment, making them all targets for the fearsome crime syndicate that wants them back.

Despite trying to stay out of the way of the bad guys, help Elaine with the store and pursue a fairly chaste relationship with Nancy, trouble follows Keung thanks to the biker gang and the professional bad guys on the trail of their stolen diamonds, and it results in even more of Chan's signature brawls and eventually the store being completely destroyed. The fight is on.

If you were in any doubt some investor (maybe a Hollywood studio) gave director Tong and Golden Harvest a much bigger budget than they were used to, it all ends in a hovercraft chase, the huge vehicle crashing through the streets of the titular New York City borough destroying cars and streetside fixtures.

Fans will recognise not just Chan's inimitable style of chop socky (barely keeping his head above water and looking like a rabbit caught in headlights even while he dispatches a room full of thugs with anything close to hand) but the entire aesthetic, from the plot machinations to the tone. If that's you, it'll feel like easing into comfortable slippers.