In the intervening twenty years, American action film and television, involving martial artists as heroes, tended to be dominated by narratives revolving around Euro-American protagonists played by actors as diverse as Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack, Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid (1984), Steven Seagal in films like Above the Law (1988), Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport (1988) and Kickboxer (1989), Michael Dudikoff in the American Ninja film series, and, of course, Chuck Norris in a variety of parts, including the eponymous role in the television series, Walker, Texas Ranger (Columbia TriStar/CBS, 1993-2001)
Female martial artist Cynthia Rothrock also had some success as China O'Brien as well as in other roles. Although a number of black action films were produced during this period, few featured African American martial arts adepts like Jim Kelly, Tamara Dobson, or Pam Grier of an earlier generation.
Perhaps more than any lingering interest in Asian martial arts, however, the fact that Western television screens were blasted by news coverage of the demonstrations in Tian'anmen Square in May and June of 1989 put China and the Chinese at the center of a year of dramatic political events worldwide. Although the Democracy Movement was violently suppressed, images of demonstrators confronting tanks and marching with the "Goddess of Democracy- figure, bearing a striking resemblance to the Statue of Liberty, formed an imaginative link between China and America on global television screens. Rapid Fire takes up some of this imagery in its narrative about Jake Lo (Brandon Lee), who was in Tian'anmen with his father during the demonstrations, and who reluctantly gets embroiled in a gang war involving a Chinese drug smuggler who also happens to support the Democracy Movement. Sometimes running from and sometimes working with the police authorities, Jake Lo eventually comes to recognize the importance of the American presence in China through the figure of his dead father who had been working for the U.
