A Conversation With
Jackie Chan
A Conversation With
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Jackie Chan's new film, Rush Hour 3, hits theaters August 10. The action comedy from New Line Cinema features the martial arts movie legend reprising his role as Chief Inspector Lee. He and his partner, Detective James Carter (played by co-star Chris Tucker), reunite in the third installment of the successful franchise for a new adventure that takes the duo to Los Angeles and Paris. The film is directed by Brett Ratner, who also directed Rush Hour 2. The 2001 film's gross intake was $350 million, making it one of the most successful comedy films in history. Black Belt presents several articles from its archives to celebrate the release of Jackie Chan's latest project, starting with this interview from 2005. ______________________________________
It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than 25 years since Jackie Chan burst onto the silver screen as the lead in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master. He brought a freshness to the genre, and while his star rose in Asia throughout the 1980s, he didn’t receive international breakout success until the late ’90s when a re-edited version of his Hong Kong-made Rumble in the Bronx rose to No. 1 at the American box office and paved the way for his success in such Hollywood films as Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights. In 2004 Chan made a full-blooded return to Hong Kong action cinema as the star and producer of New Police Story, a thrill ride that’s topped the Asian box office since its release. In the following interview, he speaks about his past projects, his current successes and his plans for the future. —M.L.
Jackie Chan: Thank you, but I want to go on record as saying I have never turned my back on my Hong Kong and Asian market. I will never forget that it was the Hong Kong audience that accepted me, then Taiwan and Japan and so on. Both my movies and myself had been very successful in Asia long before the American or international market really knew who I was. Even now, after making a lot of Hollywood movies, I’m still not used to the American way of making films, (laughing) especially the American way of making a Jackie Chan film. You can look at my American movies, even the successful ones like the Rush Hour series, Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights; they’re not 100-percent Jackie Chan-style. Even with Shanghai Noon, I gave them the script and the idea, and they changed it for the Hollywood or international audience. They changed a lot of the ideas from my story; they never listen to me. Every time I finish an American film, I come back to Hong Kong and make a Hong Kong movie. But I’ve been trying to make them a little differently. After Rush Hour, I made Gorgeous and The Accidental Spy. But even with films like The Accidental Spy, Who Am I? and especially The Medallion, everybody keeps telling me I have an international market so we should try to make international movies. But that just doesn’t work all the time. When we were writing Rumble in the Bronx, we were very lucky that it was so well-received by audiences not just in Asia, but also in America. But that was just a one-time thing. We can’t continue to make films the same way and dub the dialogue—the American audience doesn’t accept dubbing. I think I speak OK English. I think some of my directors like Stanley Tong (Rumble in the Bronx) and Gordon Chan (The Medallion, Fist of Legend) speak good English, but they are not English or American. Some of the scriptwriters study in America or England for 10 years. They tell everybody, “I know America, I understand American culture.” No! They do not fully understand American culture and the American sense of humor. They understand the Chinese market and mind-set, the same way some Western screenwriters will write things about Hong Kong or China that are very different from what it’s really like. You need to find the best screenwriters for each market—American screenwriters for American movies and vice versa.
Chan: I always try to convince American directors and producers—if they want to make a Jackie Chan film, then let’s really make a Jackie Chan film. Now they are starting to realize this. It’s all about the timing and the rules they are used to following. Their style is, for a dialog scene, we can take five days to shoot; but for an action scene, only two days. Action sequences are more difficult than dialog, but the American producers and directors often don’t understand this. I could say: “Who cares? Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. I’ve been paid already.” But that’s not my way of doing things. I care about my films and want to make good movies. BB: Your career has been so solid because you always take pride in your work. You’ve always taken time to deliver the best quality—which, as the earnings for New Police Story have proved, is the right thing to do. Chan: I think it’s a coincidence. It’s not as if I had planned that I would come back to Hong Kong after we finished Around the World in 80 Days just so I could make New Police Story. I had come back to Hong Kong wanting to help the whole film industry. I formed a new company, JCE Movies Limited, and we made the first movie for the company, Enter the Phoenix, and began work on another one, Hainan Chicken Rice. Then one day, director Benny Chan came and presented a script to us for a Police film he wanted to make. I listened to the story and thought that the leading role was not for Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs) or Tony Leung Kar-fai (The Lover); that was me, “Supercop.” At the time, the budget was very low, but we talked about the project, and they agreed that it would be good for me. Of course, the budget got a lot bigger. When we were shooting, I was thinking about what I could do to make the film bigger and better. I kept looking for locations. I wanted it to be a 100-percent Hong Kong film so we couldn’t go to any other countries. Then we were given permission to shoot at the Hong Kong Convention Center for the ending. Then we decided to make the action scenes bigger, and we used the double-deck bus again, like we did for the original Police Story. But this time, it’s not me stopping a bus with just a few bad guys; it’s a runaway bus full of passengers. BB: People have faith that a Jackie Chan film is going to be a quality product. Chan: I want to show the audience that I’m still Jackie Chan, even if I sometimes try something a little different. I can still make the kind of film they want to see. Making a movie is a gamble; you never know if it will be a hit or not. Before Rumble in the Bronx came out, I thought maybe it would be successful in Asia. I didn’t know it would do so well in America and internationally. (laughing) Even with Rush Hour, I wasn’t sure how people would feel until it came out. Then we went to No. 1. BB: You give a strong dramatic performance in the film, which sees a bruised and battered Jackie Chan slumping to the floor, not beaten from a fight, but desperate and drunk. Was this an idea that came up during filming to catch the audience off-guard? Chan: No, this was in the original script that Benny Chan gave me, and that’s one of the things I liked. A lot people expected the opening of the movie to be “Bang! Boom!”—a big action scene. Instead, we began with me falling down drunk in the street, obviously a very unhappy drunk. Then we flashed back to the way I used to be when I had my team of “supercops” and showed what went wrong. BB: Director Benny Chan did a good job of changing the kind of character you normally play. He seemed willing to let you develop the character. Chan: I think it’s about time to change. I have to grow up, to show the audience that I know that I’m older. It’s one of the reasons I liked the script. I’m not pretending to be the young cop. Even when I’m shown in happier times, I’m still playing my age. I want to let people see I really can act. A lot of people only think of Jackie Chan as an action guy. I want to be an actor, not just an action star. How can I continue to fight all the time? I’m not a young man anymore (laughing); I’m 50 years old. This film gave me a good chance to show that side of me, and now there are a couple of other directors, including Yee Tung-shing (C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri and People’s Hero), who have approached me with more dramatic projects, which I’m very happy about. I want to be a Robert DeNiro, a Dustin Hoffman. Nowadays, everybody can fight. It’s not enough anymore. You have to have a good script and a good project built around the action. It’s not like before when people just wanted to see action. But slowly the audience is beginning to accept the changes in Jackie Chan. With New Police Story, a lot of the audience is surprised to see me in such a dramatic role, and even more surprised that I can do these kind of scenes. But if I continue to just do fight sequences, the audience will forget that I can act. That’s why sometimes you need to surprise the audience. Western audiences don’t understand why Sammo Hung or Chow Yun-fat are as well-known for their comedy roles in Asia as their action films. People get an idea about you, and if you’re not careful, that’s how they will always think of you. When I began making films, they tried to make me into the next Bruce Lee. It didn’t work—until they let me be the first Jackie Chan.
Chan: Of course, it’s harder than before. When I was younger, whatever I wanted to do, whatever I wanted to try, I could do it. I wouldn’t think about the risks so much. Now, when it comes to shooting action, I have to think a little more: What about the angle? Can I jump from 10 feet? What about my knee? Let me try from six feet first and see how my legs stand up to it. I can still do it. I just have to be more careful. If I sit still for too long, my ankle can start to play up. It’s hard, but because I love action, it pushes me to keep going. If I knew I wasn’t going to make any more action films, I might not train anymore. I would take the time to relax, watch some television. But now I’m still doing action. After the interview, I will go back to the gym and train for a couple of hours. Making action movies keeps me young. BB: What kind of training regimen do you follow? Chan: My training is very different nowadays. It’s not like the old days when I needed to practice forms and one particular style. Now I do a lot of kicking and punching drills. I don’t really need to work on my power; I don’t need to knock someone down with a single punch. I work on speed and timing. I don’t lift weights very much. I watch what I eat and drink, and do a lot of running and stuff like that. BB: You’ve displayed such a variety of styles over the years, but many people still don’t know what you’ve studied and what your foundation style is. Chan: Of course, my Peking Opera training is a very strong foundation for flipping, kicking, weapons and stances. But I have studied a lot of other styles over the years: karate, taekwondo, hapkido, pak mei—I really like this style. I’ve learned tai chi, the five animal forms, kickboxing and a lot of Western boxing. But I’m not a master of any one style. If you were to ask me to play a whole form of one style, I don’t think I could do it. I can do a bit of this, a bit of that—it’s all mixed together over the years, like chop suey. (laughing) When you’re doing movies, you really have to know a lot of different styles and have a lot of different skills. It’s not like before when Shaw Brothers would say, “OK, we’re making a movie and everybody will just be doing hung gar.” After that, what can you do? You can’t keep making hung gar movies every time. Look at Sammo—even though he likes wing chun and made Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son, he doesn’t keep making films about the same martial art. BB: In recent years, Hong Kong-style gymnastics have begun turning up in American movies. Do you think they understand how to use them correctly? Chan: It’s good to see that they have learned from us, that they are doing Hong Kong-style reactions. But to me, they seem to use them too much. We use them for a really powerful technique or the end of a fight. I hit you with a punch or a kick that I’ve thrown with all my power, and you do the big reaction, up into the air, and bang! You hit the ground, and you’re finished. But in a lot of American movies, they do these big gymnastic reactions, hit the ground very hard and then get up and keep fighting. It takes away from the power of the reaction if you use it too much. BB: The Jackie Chan Stunt Team is no longer made up of only Hong Kong stuntmen. Your No. 2 man, Nicky Li, is from Hong Kong, but much of the team is from China, Korea and Australia. Do you find it frustrating that there is a lack of highly trained martial artists and stuntmen in Hong Kong these days? Chan: The whole Hong Kong movie industry has been in a slump for a while. It’s getting better, but it’s not as strong as it used to be. There used to be a lot of really good Hong Kong stuntmen, but many of them have left the business because there wasn’t enough work. And now there’s not really a new generation. Nobody seems to want to train and become a stuntman here. You go to China or Korea, even America, Australia and England, and there are more people studying martial arts and gymnastics than there are in Hong Kong. It’s sad that so few people in Hong Kong have the time or desire to study martial arts or stunt work. Where can we find the next generation of stuntmen? I can’t find them in Hong Kong, so I look at people from Korea, Australia and especially China. Eighty percent of my team is from China, and I think that it might be more in the future. Being a stuntman is very hard work. You have to learn so much—how to fight, how to react, how to act. If you’re a Hong Kong stuntman and I ask you to jump out the window to the floor below, you have to do it. You can’t just be a kicker. It’s not like in America, where you have so many stuntmen who specialize in one or two particular skills. If you’re a stuntman on my team, you have to be able to do everything. BB: You’ve often spoken about opening an official Jackie Chan Stuntman Training School. Chan: I’m really thinking about it. I want to open a school that will teach people how to be a good all-around stuntman and performer. You need to know how to choreograph, how to design, how to rig, how to react and how to act. I was a stuntman, and I became an actor and a star; so was Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. We are all stuntmen, and we went on to bigger things. Why? Because we learned things as we went along. We kept our eyes and ears open, and that’s very important. So I’m really thinking about opening a school in China to teach all aspects of being a stuntman and stunt coordinator. I want to open the school to students from around the world—China, Japan, America, Europe, everywhere. BB: You’re currently on a short break from filming The Myth, an action adventure that has you reunited with Stanley Tong. What can you tell us about this new film?
BB: How do you feel about the success of Chinese-language films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, more recently, Hero? Is it frustrating that some of your films were never released in their original language like those movies were? Chan: It makes me happy to see Chinese films doing well internationally. Of course, I would have liked to see Drunken Master 2 do better. I think the whole world is becoming closer when it comes to films nowadays. American films are very successful throughout the world. Korean films have become popular in Hong Kong in the past few years, and Asian films are starting to be successful at the American and European box office. But not that many do so well. Crouching Tiger was four years ago, and it’s only now that Hero has been released in the West. Maybe the time between the two films made them more interesting to Western audiences. If they release too many Chinese-language films of that type, I think people will get bored quickly. BB: What’s next for you? Chan: We’re getting closer [to Rush Hour 3]. I really appreciate what the Rush Hour films have done for me, so I can work my schedule around them, but we’re waiting on Chris Tucker. He has more concerns about the script and the way things are put together. I have a film with Yee Tung-shing, a dramatic film in Taiwan. And I have been developing a historical project about a famous Chinese general that I should be making next year with Stanley, but we have to finish The Myth first. I want to play different characters in each film. For the Yee Tung-shing movie, I play a tougher, more dramatic character. In addition, I have other business interests to take care of: my restaurants, my clothing line and the accessories. I stay busy even when I’m not making movies. I don’t like having nothing to do. (laughing) Maybe one day I will want to just sit back and relax, but not now. About the interviewer: Mike Leeder is a Hong Kong-based writer/producer and martial artist. He is the Hong Kong editor for Impact Magazine (http://www.martialartsltd.co.uk). He has served as a producer and consultant for a number of documentary projects, including David Carradine: A Martial Arts Journey and Art of Action: Martial Arts in the Movies. To contact him, send e-mail to bigmike@sammohung.com. 
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