FilmZone: Someone wanted to know about your singing
scenes being cut from the US release of Rumble in the Bronx. Your singing
has been a trademark of your films, so why remove your singing from the US
release?
Jackie Chan: Because if I'm singing in Mandarin, they don't understand.
In every film I sing in Mandarin and Cantonese for both market. All those years
never change, but of course, next time I will change, I will sing in English.
FZ: Are there any plans to re-release your movies here in the US? We've
heard Drunken Master II might be re-released.
JC: I think depends on how Rumble in the Bronx works (here in
America). If this one a big hit, I believe more of my movies will come out. If
it doesn't hit, back to Asia.
FZ: How do you think it will do?
JC: I have no idea. Cross my finger. Very difficult to understand
American audience, what they like, what they don't like. Some movie I like very
much, it doesn't work. Some movie I don't like, it gets big box office. Very
difficult.
FZ: Are you saying it's hard to relate to the American audience or do you
have the same problems elsewhere?
JC: No problem in Asia. Just in America.
FZ: So how does marketing a Jackie Chan movie in the United States
compare to marketing a movie in Asia?
JC: After all those years in Asia, I don't have to do promotion anymore.
We just release a Jackie Chan movie and--Boom!--people go. When all those fans
get married, have children, when their children know how to say "Papa"
and "Mama", they already tell their children, "Beside Papa and
Mama, there is Jackie Chan. Learn from Jackie Chan." So that's why I'm
becoming a tradition. In Asia, three-year-olds to eighty-year-old men know me.
But in America, I don't know.
FZ: Do you plan to direct again in the near future?
JC: Yes, I do. I do.
FZ: Even in the movies where you haven't been the director, you still
choreograph your own stunts?
JC: Yes, because nobody know myself better, and I been choreographing for
many years. Anybody directing my films say "Jackie, please do stunts."
FZ: So you were saying the films you like don't do as well at the box
office. What's your favorite Jackie Chan film?
JC: My favorite is Police Story Part 1.
FZ: Why's that? Is it was because it was the most fun to make, or did you
like the finished product the best?
JC: The product. The finished product. It's got the best director, best
martial art director, best choreography. Lots of work on this one. And also this
is the first action dangerous stunt movie. In Asia everybody was very shocked.
In the theater, first time it was showing, the first midnight show, the audience
in the theater...nobody was talking, just like this (gives look of awe). And
then everybody clapped. I spent a lot of time editing and thinking the script.
Now the best is Rumble.
FZ: Will we ever get to see another film from the "Three
Brothers"-- you, Samo Hung and Yuen Biao?
JC: Yeah. I don't know now, but after the promotion tour I go back to
Asia to meet Samo Hung and we start a new movie. Maybe soon.
FZ: One of the biggest problems American fans have is with availability.
You simply can't get Jackie Chan movies in the United States aside from The
Big Brawl and the Cannonball Run films. Are there plans to get the
videocassettes more widely distributed?
JC: I also don't know why. I ask my friend, he has a video store. He say
everyone come in rent Jackie Chan movies, but later I find out we are not
released anymore because business is business. I'm only a filmmaker. I finish
it, I give it to the company. The company hold it until the movie released in
America. Like Rumble in the Bronx, the bootleg laserdisc already
available in the United States. The movie company wants to sue us now, they have
a lawyer to sue us. We are not doing this--some other pirate is. Always they
pirate things.
FZ: What about Jackie Chan albums and merchandise? We'd like to get some
of that here.
JC: Yeah, I do have a star shop in Hong Kong that take care of all the
merchandising things. I think there's a lot of people who talk about wanting to
be an agent in the United States. We're working on it, yeah, we're working on
it.
FZ: What did you learn from your participation in TheCannonball
Run and The Big Brawl?
JC: The experience tells me that my kind of person cannot work in
America. Because I am very bad with schedules. I work my own way. My own way is
rehearsal on the set. I like to continue shoot. I don't like to just wrap. A few
hundred people on the set waiting for me, everybody waiting. My ideas coming, I
shoot. My ideas not coming, just go home. All those years, same thing. But all
those years, success in Asia. So I think if now you said, "Jackie, come to
America and be a director in United States," I think I die very soon. When
an American director shouts "Lunchtime," I say, "Ah, next
shot." But (in America) if we have a next shot we have a penalty. So I say,
"Oh, okay, take a lunch." After you take a lunch, my rhythm cannot
come back. After lunch I just (heavy sigh)...okay wrap, go home. This time I
want to work my own way, but this is a dilemma. Sometimes the union really helps
me being an actor, but being a director, I like to do it my way.
FZ: So you don't think making movies in America is a possibility for you?
JC: I don't know. I'm learning. I hope if this movie works, I come to
America and hire some American producer to teach me all the things--production,
pre-production--beginning my way a little bit, American way a little bit. Then I
can totally learn from Americans. I really hope one day I can sit down in
America and be an American director. That I like to do and work the schedule. I
have lots of things to learn.
FZ: Who would you like to work with in the States?
JC: James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and some other men I
can't remember. Quentin Tarantino. I really want to work with directors who use
good special effects. I can really learn something from them. Then later on when
I retire then I can use my real action with special effects. I want to see what
happens.
FZ: Give us a quick rundown of your many injuries.
JC: After interview, I will go home to count. Next time people ask me I
can (indicates handing out piece of paper, suggesting a pre-printed list) give
them diagram. (pointing to spots) Skull, three times nose, both jaws, neck,
shoulder bone comes out, chest bone comes out, and two sides, and two elbows,
and (pointing to hands) break, break, break my hip, butt have a lot of
explosions and glass is inside, and two knee, and shin, lots, small spots here.
And ankle I twist this ankle. And toes. From here to here--everwhere.
FZ: How about injuries in Rumble in the Bronx?
JC: Only glass, real bottles right in my face. And I broke my ankle.
FZ: You broke your ankle, but you kept going.
JC: Yeah, that's why Americans ask me, "How can you do that? We
never do that in America. Don't you have a union?" Yes, I do. I'm chairman
of the union. So I continue to do it. If I take three months off, I think the
movies gone. You know, I have to do it.
FZ: Have you ever planned a stunt but decided later that it was too
dangerous?
JC: No, because I'm not too crazy. I'm crazy, but I'm not too crazy. I
know what I'm doing. I'm not planning too crazy things. I believe I can do it, I
do it.
FZ: There's a movie where you planned to use a mechanical shark...
JC: Yes. Thunderbolt. You know what? Rumble in the Bronx is
showing all over the US on the 23rd. My new movie showing all over in China, all
over Asia, in Japan, is Thunderbolt. That means half the world showing my
movie. Very exciting.
FZ: So why didn't you use a real shark?
JC: No, I swim with the shark, five sharks. Before you are filming you
have to have license. You have to swim with shark 370 hours. Everytime the color
in my hair washes out. The tiger shark, the great white shark. Oh, scary. You
put the camera here, you don't know when the shark coming back. And when you do
a move it can't be too big. The coach stay beside me with a water gun with big
bullet to watch. Then shark coming and we're acting. Being in water you cannot
talk. When we're rolling, we know the shark's coming behind me (gestures
aplenty). And then the shark pass by. Very exciting-- What an experience. A lot
of funny scenes. You know my movies-- always natural comedy.
FZ: I wanted to ask you about your stuntmen. How big is your team?
JC: 16 people.
FZ: How do you choose them?
JC: They join my group, with me every day, nothing to do, just help
people to put on pads and things. Some people watch for one to two years,
helping if some stuntman get hurt. Watching is the best experience for doing it.
Then when the time comes I know he can do it. Then I say "Try one." Of
course, small thing first. Try the small things. Good. Then becoming more
difficult until a first class stunt man.
FZ: What kind of relationship do you have with your stuntmen?
JC: Like a family. I am like a father. Take care of all the stuntguys.
And also I have responsibility to take care of them because there is no
insurance to insure us. And I'm the first on the blacklist for insurance. First
Jackie Chan, then Jackie Chan's stunt team. So I take care of them if they get
hurt. So this way if they get hurt in someone else's movie and they don't tell
me, I will stop pay everything. They out of my group.If they hurt in my
movie, I will take care of them all the years, just keep paying. So that's why
my movie special, when you see my stuntmen. They do everything for me. I say
jump this one--BOOM! Hospital, next one-- BOOM! Even myself-- I hurt, I do it.
So I'm the leader. I must show them what I can do.
FZ: How long do your stuntmen stay with you?
JC: Ten years, fifteen years. After fifteen years they become martial
arts director with me. When I say something, they already know, they teach the
younger people what to do.
FZ: What's your daily workout?
JC: Three hours. Jogging very important. 8 kilometers. Most important is
light weight-- push-up and punch because I cannot make the body too big. I need
a flexible body. So this is why training very important.
FZ: What about diet?
JC: I eat everything. Most important is training.
FZ: What do you concentrate on while you train?
JC: It depends, because I have good basic training. Kicking and punching
I know already. Some other things you learn on the set. Like in CIA Story
after training, I learn snowboard. For Rumble in the Bronx, I learn
barefoot ski. I never done these things before. I have to learn something new
for every movie.
FZ: Let's say I'm just walking down the street in Hong Kong. What's the
likelihood that I might get involved in a kung-fu brawl? is there any chance of
that really happening?
JC: Oh, no, no. No way. Not that bad. Depends on what kind of area.
FZ: But in the movies, every single person in Hong Kong is a kung-fu
master. Is that anywhere near the case?
JC: Not anymore. Not like before. Before, almost everybody knows. When
the father knows, he teach the son. And send him to the school and everybody
would learn, because now too many other popular sport-- basketball, badmiton.
Now fathers force children to learn other sport, then martial arts.
FZ: How would you like to be remembered in film history?
JC: I just want people to remember me like I remember Buster Keaton. When
they talk about Buster Keaton or Gene Kelly, people say, "Ah yes, they
good." Maybe one day, they remember Jackie Chan that way. That's all.
