Mister Fat Goes to Hollywood

‘Fat” is a word pregnant with meaning.

For some it’s an ugly description that immediately invokes images of piggish excess--an epithet that can reduce a grown-up to tears or the treadmill.

Among urban youth, the same word is a compliment that connotes hipness, something or someone worthy of respect.

In the world of Hong Kong action movies, however, Fat is the name of a legend.

It’s the name of a figure more elegant than Pierce Brosnan, more agile than Jean-Claude Van Damme, more honor-bound than Steven Seagal and wrapped up in Denzel Washington’s smoldering sex appeal. He’s a tall, lithe character with a distinctive strut, a toothpick dangling from the side of his mouth, a sly smile that can send shivers up the spine of celluloid foes.

Questions? Chow Yun-Fat is the answer. The star of John Woo’s Hong Kong cult favorites “Hard-Boiled,” “The Killer” and “A Better Tomorrow,” Chow, 41, is one of the most bankable action heroes in the world. His name (with dubbed dialogue) is invoked on the albums of rap stars Wu-Tang Clan, and Quentin Tarantino cites him as one of his favorite actors. And now Chow is making his first American studio film, Columbia Pictures’ dark, futuristic “The Replacement Killers,” which he hopes will take him to a broader audience.

“Call me Yun-Fat or Mister Fat or Fat Boy--but never Mr. Chow,” he says, smiling. “Everyone here who knows who John Woo is knows who I am. I walk down the street and they say, ‘Are you Yun-Fat? Welcome to America!’ Amazing.” But as he paces around the video arcade facade on a sound stage in Highland Park, the only thing on his mind is survival.

Chow circles the smoky, tightly enclosed space slowly, facing a fun room mirror, wearing an expensive black silk shirt and gray pants, a gun in his right hand. Chow plays John Lee, a former elite assassin from Beijing who is trying to make a positive change in his life--a common trait of many of Chow’s most memorable characters. And, as usual, he’s being stalked.

A handsome, extremely muscular uber-man with a blond crew cut and a long black overcoat steps up from the sidelines. This is Til Schweiger, who plays Ryker, one of the replacement killers of the title--a villain trying to off John Lee and become his permanent replacement. He fires a torrent of bullets in the direction of Chow’s reflection, shattering the mirror, and all the other glass in the vicinity, into a million pieces.

The real Chow steps out of the shadows, holding his gun level with Schweiger’s head.

“Cut!” says director Antoine Fuqua, a charismatic African American in his late 20s. This is Fuqua’s first feature, after building a career on directing commercials and music videos, including Coolio’s hit “Gangsta’s Paradise.”

Chow breaks into a wide smile.

“People and Hollywood are used to Bruce Lee, and other Asian action heroes like that,” Fuqua says a little later as he looks at Chow making expressions in a monitor. “Chow is completely different, a man with a million expressions. He’s smart, he’s a gentleman, he’s versatile, and he deserves his reputation. He puts it down--he’s no joke.”

*

“Doing action sequences is easy,” Chow says, sitting in a chair a few hundred feet from the sound stage. His wife and trusted advisor, Jasmine, brings him and a reporter cups of clam chowder while they converse.

“It’s easy for me to carry two guns--I can handle that. What’s difficult for me to do is handle these lines in English,” he says with a playful laugh. Chow speaks with an accent, but his English sounds very natural--American, almost.

“The Replacement Killers” is a movie that Chow has hoped to make for three years. With a salary of almost $2 million a picture in Hong Kong, he has had the means to survive the long break between his last movie, “Peace Hotel” (1995), and the beginning of this shoot this spring.

The movie--executive-produced by Woo; Chow’s manager, Terence Chang; and Christopher Godsick--is designed for him to make the kind of action appearance his fans have come to expect. But, Chang says, it’s not the original vehicle the producers had in mind.

“Our first idea was to team him up with a male American star, someone like Bruce Willis or Kurt Russell, and he would be like the Sam Jackson character in ‘Die Hard 3,’ ” Chang says. “He’d be in a big movie but wouldn’t have to carry the picture. But then this came along, and this is familiar territory for him. Also, the American audience that knows him knows him in this kind of film, so he wouldn’t be in a comedy or a musical, which would totally throw people off.”

Woo, who made Chow a Hong Kong superstar with “A Better Tomorrow,” the 1986 film that spawned a wave of bullet-ridden crime stories influencing young filmmakers like Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, might have seemed the logical choice to direct Chow’s first Hollywood film. But, Chang says, Woo was committed to his current hit, “Face/Off,” and realized that Chow wouldn’t be well cast in that film, which needs two lead characters with similar facial structure.

So the producers turned to Fuqua, who a few years ago had been considered to direct a remake of “The Killer,” starring Richard Gere, that was eventually shelved. Chow and Woo will re-team in the near future in a 20th Century Fox action comedy called “King’s Ransom.”

For this film, Chow felt strongly that his lines not be dubbed and that he be taken seriously as a screen presence without a gun in his hand.

“At first I was very uncomfortable when I heard the playback in English,” he says with a mischievous frown. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is not my mother tongue.’ But I’ve been working really hard. My wife tells me that sometimes when I sleep I talk English to someone else.”

Chow, who worked with dialogue coach Judi Dickerson throughout the filming of the movie and who moved to West Los Angeles more than a year ago, has become a quick study of the language. He practices phrases, memorizes favorite speeches and has been developing his comprehension skills--since Cantonese pronunciation doesn’t include the sounds “L,” “V,” “F,” “Th” or “R.” But his laid-back manner and intense eyes easily communicate his meaning--even during those rare moments when he stumbles when trying to find the right word.

“The most important thing is what type of character I play in an American movie,” he says. “Like Clint Eastwood. As in his westerns, he didn’t say much, but he always gave you a strong sense of the character. I don’t always need that much dialogue to project my character. I prefer that the visuals project that more than just my words.”

Woo thinks Chow’s emotive body language will translate well in Hollywood.

“Chow is a great actor. Not just for Asia but everywhere,” Woo says. “The great thing about him is that he’s so expressive that he doesn’t need a lot of dialogue. And his physical language is so elegant. Some Asian actors might act a little too staged, but Chow is so natural. No one ever has any problem relating to Chow.”

Chang agrees, pointing out that Chow has half a dozen other projects waiting for him:

“His face transcends race and nationality. You think of Omar Sharif not as an Egyptian actor--he’s just an actor, period. Chow Yun-Fat belongs in that category.”

*

There are certain luxuries that Chow enjoys while making a Hollywood movie that he never had in Hong Kong. Like star trailers. And on-set catering.

“All we had was a lunch box every day,” he says. “Here you have coffee, biscuits, cookies and anything else you want, 24 hours a day. Amazing.”

There are certain rituals that he brought to the Hollywood filmmaking process that aren’t often practiced. He can often be seen burning incense on different parts of the set, and during long breaks, when he isn’t horsing around with members of the crew, he meditates in his trailer. He’s the kind of guy who needs nine hours of sleep a night and likes shopping for fresh vegetables in open-air markets every day.

In his own estimation, Chow favors the ordinary man’s life.

“I believe that on Earth there is good and evil,” he says, as if reciting one of the philosophical speeches of the modern-day warriors he portrays. “I always pay respect to the spirit, to let me have a peaceful place to work in. Everyone I work with on the set is my equal, and I treat all with equal respect. Maybe in a past life, we had a good relationship, so in this lifetime, it might be my job to pay you back or your job to pay me back. After this movie, we may never see each other again, so I treasure every moment we have together.”

Chow may be one of the wealthiest actors in Hong Kong, but he has a reputation as one of the most grounded. His modest upbringing, in his opinion, is what keeps him this way.

He grew up outside Hong Kong on Lamma Island, the son of two farm workers. His boyhood home had no electricity, and as a young boy he sold dim sum to early-morning travelers. They called him Gai Tsai, or “Little Dog,” a nickname that stuck with him until grade school.

“When I was 10, the family moved to Hong Kong,” Chow says. “My father worked for Shell gas, and my mother was a servant. I quit school because it was hard for them to provide.”

He recalls taking on as many odd jobs as possible to make ends meet, including office courier, hotel bellboy and camera salesman. Then, one morning in 1974, a friend noticed a newspaper ad that changed his life.

“One of my school friends saw an ad for TVB, where they were looking for actors,” he recalls, referring to Hong Kong’s biggest TV station. “You had to fill out an application, read a few lines and sing a song. Two weeks later they called me back.”

He started at TVB and quickly excelled within the system. He starred in several sitcoms and dramatic serials and hit his stride as a young hunk in a 1976 prime-time soap called “Hotel.” A 1980 series, “Shanghai Bund,” also became a big hit.

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The 12 years Chow spent acting in Hong Kong TV and then films gave him ample opportunity to try many types of roles. It was this versatility that made him appealing to Woo, who in 1985 cast him in “A Better Tomorrow,” which would not only cement the reputations of the director and his star but also helped turn around the Hong Kong film industry.

At the time, Woo and Chow were coming off a string of box-office bombs. But together they created a film that modernized many of the ancient Chinese stories of violent morality, tales of assassins with hearts of gold and menacing figures representing evil under the guise of virtue.

“We wanted to remind people of the code of honor and loyalty and chivalry,” Woo says.

Chow was Woo’s Man With No Name. But little did Woo know that by giving this cool hero the duster, the toothpick and the pistol, he was creating an urban cowboy--an actor who would define his role as director much as Robert De Niro helped define Martin Scorsese as the king of the gangster epic.

“John Woo always made characters for me that were between a bad guy and a good guy,” Chow says. “The bad guy with a good heart. It’s the key to dramatic motion. We would watch French gangster movies or things like Steve McQueen in ‘The Great Escape’ or Eastwood in ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.’ We loved those movies.”

With “The Killer” (1989) and “Hard-Boiled” (1992), the duo staged gun battles considered less representations of violence than beautifully choreographed dance movements punctuated with bullets--an irony not lost on Chow’s “Replacement Killers” co-star Mira Sorvino, who plays the American forger who helps Chow’s character turn the tables on his enemies.

“Chow is almost the Fred Astaire of action,” she says. “Where Gene Kelly was the macho-type dancer, Fred was just as masculine but elegant. Chow Yun-Fat has that kind of elegance. It’s the way he’s light on his feet; he’s perfectly balanced. It’s a real talent to pull off those gunfights, where they leap and glide through the air and not make it look thuggish.”

Woo jokes about a climactic sequence during “Hard-Boiled” in which Chow had to run down a hospital corridor as explosions go off behind him, spaced only seconds apart. Woo, a noted perfectionist, wasn’t satisfied that the charges were spaced so far apart or that by the time they went off Chow was almost out of camera range.

So, calling for a second take, the director took the detonators away from his stunt coordinator and set them off himself, without telling Chow when they were to go off. The look of terror on Chow’s face in the film is very real.

“He was so close and so surprised he wasn’t prepared for that,” Woo says of the explosions. “He ran, and when he got to the end of the hall, he threw his gun away. He was really scared, and his hair was burned. After he got off camera, he walked up to me and said, ‘John, are you happy?’ and I said, ‘Chow, I’m really happy.’ He smiled and then went and talked to the producer and complained and screamed.” Woo continues to laugh. “He’s a good friend.”

Chow doesn’t have to worry about danger on the set too much in Hollywood. He smiles when asked.

“I try to do my own stunts here, but the stunt coordinators say, ‘Mr. Chow, this is Hollywood. Not Hong Kong. I can’t allow you to do that. Maybe John Woo, but I can’t.’ ”