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During one of the film's many chase sequences, Chan leaps from the top of a bus to swing from a street sign above Hollywood Boulevard.
"It was my idea to hang on that Hollywood sign. If Rush Hour is a hit, I'm going to take that sign and put it in my living room to tell America I'm here to stay.
"If the movie bombs, I'll just quietly drop to the street, crawl back to Asia and hide out for another 12 years."
Chan has been a superstar in Asia for two decades, but he has yet to break into the American market.
Chan first came to America in 1980. Hollywood was hungry for a successor to Bruce Lee and Chan seemed to fit the mould.
The vehicle was a martial-arts drama called The Big Brawl.
"It didn't succeed because the director (Robert Clouse) wouldn't let me improvise. He had mapped out every scene in the movie and refused to let me have any input," recalls Chan. "While I was waiting for The Big Brawl to get released, I made Cannonball Run and that movie was enough of a hit to bring me back to America for its sequel."
In 1985, Chan tried a second time to break into American films with The Protector.
"Nobody liked it, either. It was a huge flop. The whole experience destroyed my confidence, so I crawled back to Asia and vowed never to come to America again."
Chan's resolve weakened largely because American stars trumpeted his cause.
"Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron contacted me about making movies for them.
"Sylvester Stallone sent me a plane ticket so I would attend the Hollywood premier of Cliffhanger. He was working on a script for a movie that would star the two of us.
"He wanted me to play a drug dealer who reforms at the end of the film. I told him I can't do that because it would alienate my Asian audiences.
"Stallone understands. He can't play a villain and neither can I. He's determined to write a movie for the two of us and Arnold Schwarzenegger insists he is looking for a project that would allow us to work together."
Chan says he agreed to make Rush Hour, his first American film in more than a decade, because director Brett Ratner accepted Chan's four conditions.
"I told him there could be no sex scenes and no graphic gore. There could be lots of action, but no real violence and he could have as many explosions as he wanted as long as they weren't huge."
Chan knows time is running out so he's placing a great deal of faith in Rush Hour.
"I'm 44 years old. I do all my own stunts, so my body can only hold up to the abuse I give it for maybe three or four more years.
"After that I want to be an action director."
The release of Rush Hour this Friday coincides with the publication of Chan's autobiography, Jackie Chan, My Life in Action, written by Jeff Yang.
Chan was born in Hong Kong on April 7, 1954, to Charles and Lee-lee Chan, who'd fled Mainland China a few years earlier.
When Jackie was 8, his father received a lucrative offer to become a chef at the American Embassy in Australia.
"The ambassador would only pay for my father to go to Australia. My mother stayed on working in the laundry at an embassy in Hong Kong until my father could afford to send for her. My parents had to apprentice me to the Yu Jim-yuen China Drama Academy for 10 years.
"I was one of the lucky ones. Many of my classmates from the academy are washing dishes in restaurants around the world."
That's a job Chan knows only too well.
After graduating from the academy, he worked as a stunt man. He earned so little money that, at 20, he went to join his parents in Australia, where he worked construction by day and was a dishwasher on weekends.
"The man who gave me the construction job was a friend of my father. The man's name was Jack. The other guys on the job couldn't or wouldn't pronounce my Chinese name so they called him Big Jack and me Little Jack.
"Eventually they just called me Jackie and that's where Jackie Chan was born, because just months later, I went back to Hong Kong and my fortunes turned completely around."
FACES TO WATCH
East is East and West is West, but finally the twain may meet.
The Asian film industry is one of the most prolific in the world, yet it has largely been obscured by its American, European and even Australian counterparts.
This past decade, Asian directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark and Ang Lee have become respected power-players in Hollywood.
Jackie Chan has been a legend in Asia for almost 20 years, yet it's only in the past three years that he has shown any chance of breaking into the lucrative American film market.
The doors that Woo, Hark, Lee and Chan have opened are ushering in the first wave of Asian actors.
* MICHELLE YEOH, who played James Bond's ally in Tomorrow Never Dies, is Jackie Chan's female counterpart in Asia. Like Chan, she is famous for her stunts and has starred opposite him in such top-grossing Asian films as Supercop. MGM has promised that if Yeoh does not return for the next Bond film, the company will develop a spin-off for her character, Chinese secret agent Wai Lin.
* CHOW YUN-FAT, who is known as the Asian Clint Eastwood, made his American debut in The Replacement Killers and has already finished his second American film The Corruptor with Mark Wahlberg. Yun-Fat is as popular in Asia today as John Wayne and Steve McQueen were in America in their days.
* GONG LI is undisputably China's leading dramatic actress and is often compared to Meryl Streep. Her films Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern, Judou, The Story of Qui Ju, Farewell My Concubine and Shanghai Triad have all been hits on the U.S. art house circuit. She makes her American film debut this fall starring opposite Jeremy Irons in The Chinese Box.
* JET LI was only 16 when he made his first film in Beijing, but he was already a world champion of martial arts. He instantly became one of China's top teen actors and then the country's leading man. With 25 top-grossing Asian films in his repertoire, Li made his American debut playing the villain in Lethal Weapon 4.
* BAI LING starred opposite Richard Gere in the drama Red Corner. She was already a star in China when she came to America five years ago to improve her English. She took small roles in The Crow and Nixon and guest starred on TV series such as Touched by an Angel. Because Red Corner was an indictment of the Chinese judicial system, Ling has been temporarily banned from returning to China or Hong Kong to work.
* SAMMO HUNG was one of Jackie Chan's classmates at the China Drama Academy in Hong Kong and has been a staple of the Hong Kong martial arts films for 20 years. He makes his U.S. debut this fall in the TV series Martial Law, playing a top Chinese detective who comes to L.A. to battle crime. Chan was offered the series but declined, recommending his old friend for the job.