The 1998 Rush Hour movie helped make Hong Kong film star and martial arts wiz Jackie Chan a household name in America, jumpstarting a successful Hollywood career. Now CBS’ TV adaptation of the hit movie franchise is looking to do the same for Jon Foo, who has landed the Detective Lee role played in the movies by Chan.
Written/executive produced by Bill Lawrence and Blake McCormick and directed/exec produced by Jon Turteltaub, CBS’ Rush Hour pilot centers on Lee (Foo), a stoic, by-the-book Hong Kong police officer assigned to a case in Los Angeles, where he’s forced to work with a cocky black LAPD officer, Carter (originally played by Chris Tucker), who has no interest in a partner. A top detective with the Hong Kong police department, Detective Lee is a dedicated professional and master martial artist, a man of few words who knows how to get the job done.
The movies’ director Brett Ratner and producer Arthur Sarkissian also executive produce with Jeff Ingold for Warner Bros TV and Lawrence’s studio-based Doozer.
Like Chan, British actor Foo, who is of Chinese and Irish descent, is a trained martial artist who has done stunt work and built a resume as an international action star. In the U.S., he is probably best known for his role in the 2010 feature Tekken.
JON FOO BIO (FROM IMDB.COM
Jon Foo is most well known for his role as Jin Kazama in the movie Tekken. He is a trained martial artist and an accomplished actor having worked in Thailand (The Protector, Bangkok Revenge), Hong Kong (House of Fury, The Myth), Los Angeles (Tekken, Extraction), Malaysia (Vikingdom) and his home town London where he began his career working in the circus. Jon himself is Irish Chinese.
Foo has worked with Jackie Chan in both House of Fury (2005) and The Myth (2005). Foo would later be cast as Detective Lee in the action comedy TV series Rush Hour (2016), a role which Chan played in the films.
ABOUT WEAPONIZED, AVAILABLE MARCH 1st
A damaged homicide detective must prevent a grieving father from unleashing a "robotic virus" in WEAPONIZED, an action-packed thriller arriving on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD March 1. Ripped-from-the-headlines horrors meets 21st century weapons tech in this muscular sci-fi film featuring an all-star action cast with Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, Heat), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler, Iron Man 2), Johnny Messner (4GOT10) and Jon Foo, star of the upcoming CBS series "Rush Hour".
After a blatant terrorist attack on the Pentagon, and the resulting new war on terror, private military contractor Kyle Norris (Sizemore) facilitates the development of a bio-mechanical weapons program by Professor Clarence Peterson (Rourke). The next-gen program allows soldiers to swap consciousness with a target, giving them temporary, yet complete, control. While the program was intended to combat terrorists and safe guard American soldiers, abuse has been rampant. Enter down-and-out Detective Walker (Messner), who unwittingly stumbles upon the failing bio-weapons program, and he's forced to fight to both shut it down and protect his young family from those who'll stop at nothing to keep things moving forward.
Timothy Woodward Jr., the producer/director behind the recent action films Checkmate, starring Danny Glover, Sean Astin and Vinne Jones and 4Got10 starring Dolph Lundgren, Danny Trejo, Vivica Fox and Johnny Messner, delivers a non-stop genre film that delivers both thrills and a shocking twist of an ending that'll keep audiences guessing until the credits roll. Taylor Cole ("CSI: Miami" and "The Glades") and Michael Paré also co-star; bonus features include deleted scenes.
"WEAPONIZED gave us the unique opportunity to combine fast-paced action with an intellectual scientific element that really makes you think. With the plot being set in the future, we were able to really use our imagination and create our own world, making the storytelling more exciting and challenging," said Woodward Jr.