Carter confirms that they are Reign's counterfeits and they trace the money back to a bank. He tells them that a usually broke customer recently came into his establishment with a suspicious amount of hundred-dollar bills. Lee and Carter pay a visit to Kenny, an ex-con known to Carter who runs a gambling den in the back of his Chinese restaurant.

After a few misunderstandings, Molina tells the two men that she is undercover, looking into Reign's money laundering of $100 million in superdollars. Secret Service agent named Isabella Molina, whom Carter met earlier in Hong Kong. They set up camp outside the Reign Towers, spotting a U.S. On the plane, Carter tells Lee that in every large criminal operation, there is a rich white man behind it and that man is Steven Reign, a billionaire Los Angeles hotelier whom Carter saw acting suspiciously on Tan's boat. However, at the airport, Carter gets Lee to return to LA with him. Carter is ordered back to Los Angeles for involving himself and Lee volunteers to take him to the airport. An angry Sterling holds Lee responsible for Tan's death, and orders him off the case. Just as Tan asks for protection, Hu Li shoots him and makes her escape in the chaos. Tan scolds his underling, Hu Li, who then leaves as Lee and Carter confront her boss. He and a relieved Lee cross paths at Tan's yacht where he is holding a dinner party. Carter is revealed to be alive, leaving the room before it exploded. Suddenly, the nearby room that Carter was in is bombed, causing Lee to believe he's dead and grieve for him.

Secret Service, led by Agent Sterling, and the HKPF soon get into a fight over the jurisdiction of the case. This, however, causes Lee and Carter to get into a brawl between them and Tan's bodyguards, with Carter becoming shocked with Lee as they were busy with their vacation. Tan, who was suspected of having a role in elder Lee's death (although never proved), is now a leader of the Triads. Inspector Lee is assigned to the case, which becomes personal when it is discovered that it somehow involves Ricky Tan, his late police officer father's former partner. Their leisure is temporarily put on hold as soon as a bomb explodes at the United States Consulate General, murdering two undercover U.S. Four days after the events of Rush Hour, LAPD detective James Carter is on vacation with his friend, HKPF Chief Inspector Lee, as he was asked to vacation along with Lee after helping save the Chinese Consul's Han daughter, Soo Yung, in Los Angeles.

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