Ricky Tan

"Imagine a business where people hand you money, and you hand them back...... absolutely nothing. Now that's a real American dream. Thanks to a few pieces of metal and the most beautiful U.S. customs agent, I'm back in business."

- Ricky Tan revealing himself as the true mastermind behind the money laundering scheme operated in both the city of Hong Kong and Las Vegas' Red Dragon Casino.

Richard "Ricky" Tan (also known as Ricky Tan) is the main antagonist in the 2001 action/comedy film Rush Hour 2.

He was portrayed by John Lone.

Background
Ricky Tan worked for the Hong Kong Police Force and was Lee's father's partner. While investigating an international smuggling case. Lee's father soon discovered that Tan was working for the Triads all along. Just as he would deliver the information to his superior, Tan confronted Lee's father at gunpoint. Lee's father knows that Tan bonded with his son and asked him to promise not to kill his son. Tan was upset by this so he shot Lee's father dead. The evidence disappeared, the case was never solved and Tan resigned from the police force.

Rush Hour 2
5 years later, Tan started another crime wave with the Triads and became their leader alongside his henchwoman Hu Li. He had hired her to kill two U.S. Customs agents (who were impersonating themselves as American translators), trying to investigate them. Hu Li followed the plan and went to the American embassy, delivering them a bomb disguised as a package. Soon after, the building exploded, killing the two agents.

Later, while Lee and his friend L.A.P.D. Detective James Carter are getting relaxed at the Heaven On Earth massage parlor, they see Tan sitting down on a recliner after he emerged from the spa room. Carter tells Lee they should go and arrest him but Lee warns him not to because he is very dangerous. Lee goes to call for back up and Carter decides to confront Tan himself. He walks over to him and demands that he get up but when Tan tells him that he's busy as of the moment, Carter jokingly says that he is busy too and again tells him to get on his feet. Tan recognizes Carter and says he knows that he is Lee's American friend. Carter once again makes another joke and again tells him to get up. Tan laughs and says that Americans are so funny. Angry, Carter takes Tan's laptop and throws it on the ground, breaking it and then proceed to stomp on it repeatedly. Tan's bodyguards stand up but Tan orders them to settle down. Lee comes out witnessing the fiasco and tries to stop Carter from physically attacking Tan. Tan is happy to see Lee again but Lee explains to him about the deaths of the two Americans from the embassy explosion and asks him to come down to the police station. Tan tells Lee if he has anymore questions, he should ask him here. Lee makes a move with his mouth and Carter mistakenly thought that Lee was telling him to attack Tan. He grabs Tan by the collar of his robe causing the bodyguards to stand up and confront him. Slightly frightened, Carter apologizes for breaking his laptop and offers to pay for him and get him a new one. Tan tells him that he must excuse himself and tells Lee to have a good day. He then immediately leaves leaving his bodyguards to confront Lee and Carter. This breaks into a large brawl which ends with the two as victors but then they are later captured by Hu Li and stripped of their clothes.

Later Tan holds a dinner party on his yacht in the middle of Hong Kong harbor. Carter makes it to Tan's boat before Lee does but when they are able to catch up with each other the Triads tell the cops that Tan is waiting for them. On their way to the main deck Lee reveals to Carter that Tan was his father's partner. Meanwhile, Tan reperminds Hu Li for disappointing him and asks her if she has forgotten where she is from. Then tells her not to forget who she works for. As he asks her if she sure she will think she can be a leader, Lee and Carter arrive to confront Tan. Tan dismisses Hu Li and tells Lee to have Carter wait inside. Carter refuses but Lee tells him that he will be fine. Carter reluctantly leaves. Tan tells Lee that he never blew up the embassy but he believes some of his people did and that he is being framed. He is caught up in a war within the Triads and is afraid he is going to lose this time. He says to Lee that if his father was still alive he would have turned to him for advice but Lee warns him to never speak of his father. Tan asks Lee for help as he cannot trust anybody. When Lee interrogates him on why they killed the customs agents, Tan tells Lee that he will give him all the information he needs but he has to get him out of Hong Kong right away. Suddenly, Hu Li and some henchman interrupt the meeting but when Tan reperminds her again, she responds by shooting him in the chest and he suddenly falls of the boat. Hu Li then leaves her henchman to deal with Lee, who defeats them before chasing after Hu Li who manages to escape off the boat.

Three days later, Tan some how ends up in Las Vegas alive and well after having faked his death. He appears at the Red Dragon Casino when Hu Li captures Lee and takes him to the upstairs control room. Isabella Molina, a crooked U.S. customs agent (who is revealed to be a U.S. secret service agent working undercover) is shown sitting on the couch as Tan tells Lee that he is back in business. Tan then reveals to Lee that he is the mastermind behind the counterfeit smuggling ring and that he and Hu Li worked together to fake his death back in Hong Kong. Hu Li points out to her boss that Steven Reign the owner of the Red Dragon is heading for the penthouse to get the plates which were used for the counterfeit scam. They see Carter on the security camera dancing on a crap table and Tan orders Hu Li to tell the security to get rid of Carter. He then turns to Lee and tells him that the trouble with partners is they die "as will he". Before he leaves the control room he leaves Hu Li to do whatever she wants telling her to "have fun." With help from both Isabella and Carter, Lee escapes the explosive situation and spits out the grenade that he was holding in his mouth before Hu Li detonates it on a gambling table. Lee then chases after Tan while Carter fights Hu Li.

Back in the penthouse, Reign is shown opening the plates and is about to leave when he runs into Tan. Reign tells him that he's cutting their deal short and is keeping the plates showing him a gun tucked into his trousers (apparently warning him not to cross him). Tan tells him that he enjoyed his story about the dragon and the treasure and his mother used to tell it to him all the time. He asks him if he knows the morale of that story. Reign says "Greed will imprison us all." Suddenly, Tan stabs him in the stomach with a knife and says that he hates "that fortune cookie shit!". As Reign slumps to the ground dead, Tan takes the plates and is about to leave when Lee arrives and confronts him. Tan laughs and says "just like your father". He says he really did try to help him, to share with him and to make Lee's life better but he was too weak and too afraid of change. Lee demands the plates telling Tan that its over. Tan tells him that its not over and he offers to help Lee gamble instead of bringing him to justice warning him not to make the same mistake that his father had done. Tan turns around but Lee threatens to kill him if he reaches for the gun. Tan asks him "Don't you remember? I'm already dead.". He tries to hit Lee with the bag containing the plates but Lee ducks and grabs Reign's gun shoving him up against the wall and holding him at gunpoint (possibly the same way Tan held Lee's father at gunpoint). Carter appears moments after defeating Hu Li. Tan then explains to Lee how he killed his father and that it was pathetic to hear him ask him to promise not to kill him. Carter encourages Lee to shoot him. As Tan taunts Lee some more about his father, this enrages Lee as he could not bring himself to do it. Carter then suggests to Lee that he should fight Tan. Just as Lee was about to tell Carter to shut up, Tan knocks the gun away in Carter's direction, causing it to go off.

A struggle ensues with Tan trying to retrieve the gun and Carter's attempts to stop him. Lee suddenly sees Tan picking up the gun and shooting at Carter who is holding up a carpet rug blocking the shot. Unable to see another person close to him die, Lee accidentally does a jumping kick to Tan, sending him crashing out the window where he falls several stories to his death, landing on a taxi cab.

Trivia

 * In the theatrical version of the film, (as Tan stabs Reign) he says "I hate that fortune cookie shit!". In the TV edited version, he says "Where'd you get that? In a fortune cookie?".
 * Tan's death was referenced in the character Maggie Peterson's death (from Child's Play), in which both of them fall from highly elevated places and crashed on a vehicle.
 * When Lee angrily points the gun towards him, Tan possibly did the same to Lee's father when he begged him not to kill his son.
 * Tan was apparently the long time partner of Lee's father, when he worked for the Hong Kong Police Force. He also bonded closely with Lee. Lee had thought that his father was killed in the line of duty, but it turns out Tan had murdered his father to prevent him from the telling the authorities that he betrayed the police force to work for the Triads.
 * While working as a cop, Tan was a member of the Triads but after Lee's father's death, he resigned from the police force and continued to work for them. He was later ascended to the leadership position.
 * It is unknown how Tan and Hu Li had faked his death in Hong Kong to trick Lee and Carter. Presumably, Hu Li might have shot Tan with a bullet that was blank. Another possibility is that Tan might have survived the shot and somehow survived Hong Kong Harbor's heavily-polluted waters and washed up elsewhere.
 * In the outtakes, after a special effects dummy of Tan's falls on the taxi cab, Carter says "Damn! He ain't gonna be in Rush Hour 3!".
 * Out of all villains, Tan is the only one to get killed by Lee.