Hu Li

Hu Li is the right-hand henchwoman of Ricky Tan and the secondary antagonist in Rush Hour 2. She is portrayed by Zhang Ziyi.

Hong Kong
Hu Li first appears at the beginning of the film, disguised in a blond wig and holding a package while walking into an office building at the American Embassy. Shortly after delivering the package, she walks out onto the street near a janitor and soon, the building explodes. She stops by the janitor and says in Cantonese "Somebody better call the police".

Later at the bar, where Carter and Lee are looking for Ricky Tan, Lee spots her as soon as she goes through some curtains. He gives chase to her and the Triads and Carter follows, which leads them all the way to a bamboo building in the marketplace of Hong Kong. Once Lee reaches the top, she knocks him off the building with a large bamboo stick, which leaves Lee hanging from the bent bamboo. As she prepares to finish him off, she hears noises coming from the doors and flees as soon as Carter arrives. He attempts to rescue Lee, but she sneaks up behind him and as Lee tries to warn him about Hu Li being right behind him, knocks him off the building with the bamboo stick, leaving the two cops hanging from the building while she flees again.

Later, along with some triad members, she dumps Lee and Carter off on the freeway after capturing them from the massage parlor and stripping them of their clothes.

She later goes into the Yu Ma Tel Police Station disguised as a delivery woman again and walks towards Lee's office. Carter comes out and flirts with her not knowing that she is the same woman who knocked him off the bamboo building the night before. When he blows a kiss to her, she shuts the door, leaving him dumbfounded. After Carter leaves the police station Lee returns to his office after speaking with Sterling and his boss Captain Chin. Soon after his office explodes frightening all of the police officers present.

She appears again while on her boss Ricky Tan's yacht in the middle of Hong Kong harbor, Carter spots her as she goes down to the main deck to meet with her boss. Tan reprimands Hu Li for disappointing him and asks if she had forgotten where she is from, and then tells her not to forget who she works for. Soon he dismisses her when Lee and Carter arrive to confront Tan. Tan tells Lee that he'll give him all the information he needs, but he has to get him out of Hong Kong right away. Hu Li appears again with some henchman interrupting Lee and Tan. When Tan reprimands her again she responds by shooting him and he falls off his boat. She attempts to escape after leaving her henchman to deal with Lee when she calls over a boat. Carter appears and confronts her and she does a back roundhouse kick to his face. When he challenges her she kicks him again in the chin which causes him to fall to the floor knocked out. Lee goes to find her but she manages to escape on the boat with help from her henchman.

Los Angeles
Hu Li appears again, this time in Los Angeles where once again she disguises herself as a delivery woman delivering a package to Isabella Molina at her hotel room at the Reign Tower Hotel, Isabella is later revealed to be working undercover as a U.S.Customs agent. Lee and Carter who are spying on Isabella from the left side of the Reign towers believes that the delivery woman was Hu Li. Thinking the package was a bomb they run across to the right side of the Reign towers and reach the hotel room where they steal the package from Isabella and run up the staircase to the rooftop where they are trying to get rid of the "bomb". Unable to they throw the package down and duck for cover but Isabella appears and reveals that the package was not a bomb but a stack of money bills.

She appears again at the Reign Plaza Bank with some henchman and Isabella. As Lee and Carter are giving chase to a worker named Zing it is revealed that the triads were waiting for them the whole time. While the cops are being held at gun point by the henchman, Hu Li tells Lee that she'll be remembered for getting rid of him. When Carter attempts to lie she sees through it and pulls a gun on him forcing him to apologize. She prepares to kill them both but Isabella steps in and says "I think there is someone who would like to talk to them first". Hu Li lowers her gun as Isabella sneaks up behind Lee and knocks him unconscious with her gun. Carter confronts her as she aim her gun at him but Hu Li kicks him in the chin knocking out his filling. When he tells her that its gon cost her, she slaps his face and he retaliates by saying that he never hit a woman in his life but she is pushing it. Angered Hu Li orders her henchman to take the unconscious Lee to the truck and hold Carter. As Carter is being held at gun point and being forced to go to the truck he stops by and tells her "you better watch you're back!" Angered she knocks Carter unconscious again and orders her henchman to carry him to the truck as well.

As they depart for Las Vegas, Hu Li is shown riding in a limousine with her bodyguard and Isabella. While carving an apple she is upset claiming that she doesn't trust Isabella and that it was a mistake having her here. Her bodyguard tells her that their orders are to leave her alone. Isabella looks up at Hu Li and smiles. She smiles back and tells her bodyguard, "why don't i slice those pretty lips off her face and bury her in the desert with those two cops".

She gives the apple to Isabella and asks "Some apple?" Isabella takes it and says "and put that knife away, bitch, before you have an accident". In retaliation Hu Li throws the knife and it strikes the apple just before Isabella was about to eat it.

Las Vegas
At the Red Dragon Casino, Lee, at Isabella's request, goes to infiltrate the back area to find the engraving plates which were used to make the counterfeit money scam. Lee is spotted by the guards through the security cameras and after fighting them he attempts to escape but is captured by Hu Li and another of Ricky Tan's henchman. While the guards are holding Lee down she sticks a ying tao grenade and puts it in Lee's mouth, her henchman gags and tapes his mouth and hands as she tells him to follow her or she'll push the detonator and blow 32 teeth in his brain. She takes up to the top floor of the casino where Isabella still undercover is waiting along with a still alive Ricky Tan revealing that he has faked his death and as Lee suspected is in charge of the operation. Hu Li points out to her boss that Steven Reign is headed for the penthouse to get the plates. He then tells Lee that he is planning to get rid of Carter and that the trouble with partners is they die "as will he". Before he leaves he tells Hu Li to "have fun".

Hu Li approaches Lee and tells him that after she's through with him he'll be begging her to push the button on the detonator. Isabella then takes out a gun from under the table, reveals herself as a U.S.Secret Service agent and attempts to arrest Hu Li, before she would press the detonator Lee kicks it out of her hand and a fight ensues. After subduing Isabella by knocking her out with a kick, Hu Li sees Lee subdue the henchman and attempts to kill him by going for the detonator but Lee stops her by holding her close to his gagged mouth intending to kill them both. She kicks him in the groin area and he stops her by holding her until she breaks free and kicks him out of a window where he falls out on to the casino floor still gagged and taped. Isabella regains consciousness and sweeps Hu Li's detonator out on to the casino floor, where Lee spots it and chases after it to prevent his own death.

Isabella regains her gun, but Hu Li attempts to steal it from her. While they are both fighting over it the gun goes off firing shots all over the office which causes everyone in the casino to flee. Isabella and Hu Li keep fighting over the gun until Hu Li pushes Isabella off and shoots her in the arm. She attempts to shoot her again but the gun is out so she escapes by jumping out onto the casino floor. Hu Li attempts to find her detonator and she soon sees it sweep out from under her while people panicked are running from the casino. She sees Lee and Carter together as Carter starts pulling the tape off of Lee's mouth. With a sly smile Hu Li finds her detonator trying to kill them both but Lee managed to spit the grenade out and it lands on a casino table roller. Hu Li pushes the button on her detonator and the table explodes forcing Lee and Carter to duck for cover.

After Lee frees himself he tells Carter that Ricky Tan is alive, they attempt to head to the penthouse but a furious Hu Li throws a bladed spear at them. Lee attempts stop her but Carter tells him to go after Tan while he deals with Hu Li. Carter taunts her by challenging her and saying that he's going to pretend that she's a man. Hu Li takes a katana from a statue and attacks Carter. While they fight, Carter grabs her and sniffs her while going "umm you smell good" She does a high kick to his face and chases after him with the sword, he uses a roller from the casino table to block Hu Li's attacks and even use a chair. He grabs her sword but she grabs another one off a statue and nearly stabs Carter in the chest with it. She thrusts in the blade again but it seems to not be working so she kicks Carter and he falls back into a statue which causes a spear to fling up and seemly impale her in the chest knocking her unconscious and making her appear dead. It is revealed that she was only thrusting a stack of money into the left pocket of Carter's suit, which makes him feel relieved and joyful. He then looks down on the unconscious Hu Li and tells her that they could've been a good couple, but she was crazy.

Death
Moments after Lee and Carter defeat Ricky Tan by sending him to his death outside a window where he landed on a taxi cab, a seriously injured and limping Hu Li enters, holding a time bomb in an attempt to kill them both. Carter demands that she disarm the bomb as she threatens them in Cantonese. But Lee sees that the clock on the bomb is about to reach zero and tells Carter that they have to jump out the window. Carter refuses, but Lee pleads with him. They both take off their jackets and wrapped them on the wires just as the clock reaches at one with Hu Li pleading with them for mercy in Cantonese. She is killed in the explosion when the bomb detonates after they leap out the window sliding on decoration wires with their jackets and holding on to them with the explosion right behind them.

Trivia

 * The character Hu Li (the Mandarin word for fox) was originally written for a man.


 * Ziyi Zhang could not speak English, so she had to take direction via the combination of an interpreter (often Jackie Chan himself) and Brett Ratner essentially performing "charades". Her character only says three English words in the movie: "Some apple?" and, later, "Out!" In an interview, Roselyn Sanchez said that Ziyi Zhang tried learning English from her, but tried to discourage her as she would have ended up speaking it with a Puerto Rican accent.
 * Chris Tucker ad-libbed many different versions of his short speech to Hu Li at the end of their fight. Brett Ratner felt the speech was not working and told Tucker to call her a "bitch". Tucker refused to say the word and it took hours of convincing by Ratner before Tucker finally agreed.
 * In the fight scene with Hu Li, Carter defends himself with a roulette wheel. When Hu Li stabs at Carter with her sword, she hits the wheel directly on the "00" (double zero), which only appears on American roulette game wheels.
 * Hu Li is both a reference to Sang of the first film (the most trusted henchman of Juntao) and Jasmine of Rush Hour 3 (hired by Kenji as his assassin). The referenced to that is they are all most trusted and hired assassins.
 * With Zing, she is the only character of all Rush Hour characters who does not talk English, though she only speaks three English words in the film " Some Apple?" then "Out!"
 * Of all assassins and most trusted henchmen, she is the only one to not get killed by the main/supporting characters. Such as in Rush Hour Sang (the most trusted henchman of Juntao) gets killed by James Carter. In Rush Hour 3, Jasmine (Kenji's assassin) gets killed by Soo-Yung.