Rolling With the Punches

He spent the afternoon filming a comic fight scene with four black-suited thugs on the deck of a luxury motor yacht and being dragged behind a powerboat in the shark-infested South China Sea.

Later in his Kowloon office, Jackie Chan, looking boyish and fresh despite the afternoon’s efforts, talked about his recent success with the hit film “Rush Hour.” In Chan’s opinion, he has made many better films than the Brett Ratner-directed buddy cop movie, in which he co-stars with motor-mouth comedian Chris Tucker.

But in the American market, at least, mass recognition had been slow to come for the 44-year-old actor. Before “Rush Hour,” it appeared Chan would be eclipsed in America by younger Hong Kong action rivals Chow Yun-Fat (“The Replacement Killers”) and Jet Li (“Lethal Weapon 4”). Chow, the favorite actor for director John Woo, even landed the lead in the upcoming remake of “The King and I” co-starring Jodie Foster.

“Chow Yun-Fat is playing the king,” Chan joked mischievously during the two-hour interview. “But the movie is going to be called ‘Anna and the King’--Jodie Foster first.”

But the phenomenal success of “Rush Hour” vaulted Chan, at least for the moment, above his talented rivals. Time to savor it a bit before moving on to “Rush Hour” II, III, IV . . . XXIII.

Here in Asia, Chan has long been the most famous action actor working, loved for his artistic fight scenes--more balletic than ballistic--as well as his disarming smile and self-mocking slapstick humor.

What other action hero besides Jackie Chan, for example, grabs his fist and grimaces in pain after thwacking his evil foe with a neatly turned jab? Who else but Jackie Chan insists on “no blood from the nose or the mouth” in his dialogue-less fight scenes that sometimes last 15 minutes and which he says are inspired by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly dance movies? Who else but Jackie Chan performs all his own stunts and has the scars and fractured bones to show for it?

These trademark touches have made the broken-nose, 5-foot-and-change acrobatic actor from Hong Kong a top star across Asia. Teenage girls one-third his age swoon over him in Tokyo. Hindus and Muslims alike imitate his moves in the slums of Bombay. Moscow petty street criminals hoard his films. So do Thai farm girls and Shanghai shopkeepers.

In the United States, Chan appeared briefly and unmemorably in several early 1980s films, the most successful of which were the Burt Reynolds’ “Cannonball Run” car-race flicks. These bit parts won him no lasting fame in America.

But Chan long has had a following among the Hollywood intelligentsia who admired him in Cantonese classics such as “Drunken Master,” “Police Story” and the elegant “Miracle,” a Hong Kong-style remake of Frank Capra’s “Pocketful of Miracles.” Quentin Tarantino is reportedly a fervent aficionado dating back to his days as a video store clerk.

Chan won a broader American audience with his 1996 film “Rumble in the Bronx,” which was aimed at the U.S. market and had a brief fling at the top of the North American box office.

But nothing compares to his 1998 success with “Rush Hour,” co-starring shrill-voiced, bulimically vocal comedian Chris Tucker and directed by Hollywood phenom Ratner. Out of respect for the Chinese actor’s martial-arts artistry, Ratner pretty much let Chan choreograph most of the fight scenes, characteristically improvised with such available props as pool cues, a serving platter and a bar stool.

“Rush Hour” hit the $100-million mark in just over a month and easily surpassed the returns of such fall critical favorites as Meryl Streep’s “‘One True Thing” and Robert De Niro in “Ronin.”

“Even myself, I have no idea why the film was so successful,” Chan said during an animated interview in his Kowloon office. “There are so many buddy movies already. You know ‘Lethal Weapon,’ ‘48 HRS.’--so many already. I think with ‘Rush Hour’ it was just good timing. Why? Because after ‘Rumble in the Bronx’ was a success, then everyone went to rent the videos of ‘Drunken Master,’ ‘First Strike’ and the others. They kept looking at all the old films.

“Meanwhile, everybody in Hollywood was talking about me,” Chan said, standing and jabbing several times in the air for emphasis. “Quentin Tarantino. Everybody was talking. This created an excited audience. OK--BOOM!--now the first big American film.”

Interviewing Chan, who is in Hong Kong making a Cantonese romantic comedy, is a little bit like talking to one of the action comic figures in a Roy Lichtenstein pop-art painting. When English fails, a few BOOMs, POWs, UMPHs and WHAPs fill the empty space. When Chan is really in trouble, he slips into Cantonese, the difficult Chinese spoken in Hong Kong and southern China.

Question: What is the movie you are working on now?

Answer: It’s called “Gorgeous.” In Chinese it’s called “Glass Bottle” because the movie beginning features this bottle. In this movie I try to change a little bit my character. I play a playboy businessman. I’m not a cop anymore. But what I like about this is that I’m a guy who got rich collecting all the rubbish and recycling it. So it’s kind of a good message . . . it has a good message for the young children.

Q: Jackie Chan seems to create different reactions in every country. In Japan it is young girls who like you. In the United States it is young males. How do you explain this?

A: In Japan, everyone likes me. Even if they are 80 years old, they like me. If I walk on the street everyone says, “Oh, Jackie Chan, ya-ya-ya.” But the young girls are crazy. They follow me. They commit suicide. That gives me a lot of problems. It happens everywhere, but in Japan they are more crazy. They kill themselves. They die.

Q: In America right now you are a very popular actor, especially for young men. Why is this?

A: I think it is not just “Rush Hour.” It’s all those years for “Drunken Master,” “Rumble in the Bronx,” “First Strike”--they all have seen the videos. When “Rush Hour” came out they could go directly to the theater.

Q: First you were a cult, then “Rumble in the Bronx” brought in a younger audience. But isn’t “Rush Hour” your most American film?

A: Yeah, there was Chris Tucker. And the way it looked, the photography and the dialogue. Everything, everything was American. It was not like “Rumble in the Bronx” where we had to teach American actors to speak in Chinese English. We thought it was an American film but it was not.

Q: “Lethal Weapon 4” had [Chinese action star] Jet Li; a black actor, Danny Glover; and many things similar to “Rush Hour” but wasn’t nearly as successful. Why?

A: The difference is that in “Rush Hour” they really gave me a lot of freedom. I can control all the fighting scenes. In “Lethal Weapon 4” all the fighting scenes are similar to American movies--BOOM BOOM BOOM--big explosions. So when the movie started--”Rush Hour”--I went to the director and said, “Look, you have to promise me. Fewer explosions. Less violence. Fewer gunfights. Even if you have the gunfights don’t show the blood. We want no special effects. Jackie Chan will be the special effects, doing exactly what I am doing in Asia.” So when the pool hall fighting scene took place they just let me do it. Even the director let me do all the things. So the audience really can see something different than the typical American action movie.

American action movies have a lot of special effects, big explosions . . . “Independence Day.” BOOM. How can you do bigger than “Armageddon”? So I said no explosions. Even next movie, fewer. Fighting--a lot of people can do that. But they don’t know how to choreograph all the fighting scenes. Everybody knows how to fight, I am proud of myself for knowing how to choreograph.

Q: You always mention the influence of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and others. The movie you made, “Miracle,” was very much a Frank Capra kind of film. What other influences?

A: The problem is that I can’t remember all their names. Of course I always mention Frank Capra and David Lean . . . but there are so many other directors I really like . . . and the director who did “Sound of Music” [Robert Wise]. So many good directors. You know I’ve never been to real school. I was just like a child actor. First, I just wanted to be a good stuntman. Then I wanted to be a good stunt coordinator. Because in Hong Kong being a stunt coordinator is so powerful, you have 20 stuntmen on the set and you say, “Oh, you need to jump.” At 18 years old, I became the youngest stunt coordinator in Asia. I never thought I would be an actor or a director. Then some directors came and started using me as an actor. Then I thought about being a director. But how? OK, watch more movies. Before I just watched movies. OK, good movies, bad movies, but now I watch movies, the background, the camera movement, why the lighting is like this. Then day by day, year by year, then I learned a lot of things.

Q: Who are some of the actors and actresses you admire most?

A: Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro. I really like the actor who has multi-talent.

Q: Any movies or scenes that just knocked you out?

A: “Tootsie” is one. Al Pacino in “Godfather.” Robert De Niro in oh so many, like that great movie “Midnight Run.” And Jodie Foster. Why I liked her is that [she] was a child actor who became an [adult] actress. Then she became a director. And you know the short guy, very short, Danny DeVito--he’s a very good director and writer.

Q: “Rush Hour” has been a huge success in the U.S. but less of a success in Asia? How could a picture be so popular there and not so popular here?

A: First there is the language problem. For an American movie in Asia we are very successful. We are very happy about the box office. But compared to my own movies it’s not that successful. Why? Because you can tell in Hollywood from the first beginning you can see the audience HAH-HAH-HAH HAH-HAH-HAH. But I sit there like this [looks blank, totally untouched] “What’s up nigger?” I think, “What’s that? What’s so funny?” But the whole theater is laughing. Even when I’m filming . . . why is everybody smiling? [When Chris Tucker says] “Never touch a black man’s radio.” Everybody HAH-HAH-HAH. I say, “What’s so funny?” Same thing happens in Taiwan, Hong Kong premiere. The whole audience just sits there [Chan looks blank]. You know the director and Chris Tucker in the middle of [seeing] the movie they turn around and ask me: “Do they speak English?” I say yes, everybody speaks English but it is just like me, they don’t get it. . . . If you stay in Hong Kong you never know. These kind of jokes don’t work. [quotes another line from the movie] “Look, I’m Michael Jackson, you’re Tito.” In America, HAH-HAH-HAH. I come back, nothing. it is a totally different language. A totally different culture.

What made the movie so popular in America was that Chris Tucker did the verbal comedy, I did the action comedy.

Q: But going the other direction across the Pacific somehow it works. You are a cult there and becoming more of one?

A: Action. Because of action. My movies are so popular in Russia, India, Malaysia, Indonesia. Why are only Jackie Chan Chinese movies so popular in Asia? Even in Iran and Iraq. Everybody sees them. Without dialogue, only the action.

Q: When you went back to Hollywood a month ago after “Rush Hour” was a huge success, were you treated differently, given more respect?

A: [slips into Cantonese] It was very obvious.

So many offers from so many companies. I went to meetings with 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Disney. A lot of different producers I really can’t remember all their names. In their head office we would sit in meetings. They say, “We can do this, we can do that.”

Q: What about the promised “Rush Hour II”? When is it going to come out?

A: We already have a script. We haven’t seen it yet. I told them, “Don’t rush. Don’t rush ‘Rush Hour II.’ ” Why? If you finish this one and immediately do a second one it’s no good. Let Chris Tucker do something else. I can do something else. [slips into Cantonese] You need to rest it awhile. I told Chris Tucker, and I told the director. Look, we already put these hints at the end of “Rush Hour.” We get on this plane. Where are we going? Nobody knows. If the movie was good, OK. We continue. If the movie is no good then explosion, the plane blows up. [very animated] . . . They asked me what would be good box office. I said $40 million to $50 million I would be happy. I could not imagine the first three days: $33.4 million. I was so happy. Now of course there is Part 2.

Q: What did you think of this director Brett Ratner, who is so hot in Hollywood now?

A: He’s a very young guy, only 28. Only made two movies. He has very good potential. [in Cantonese] He’s straight with people. He’s like a young boy. Most important is that he knows me. He’s been watching my films for years. He said, “Jackie, OK, I know your idea for the action scene to come. Go ahead and go with it.”

Q: You were in “Cannonball Run I and II” with Burt Reynolds back when he was a big action hero. Now he is kind of an old man character, playing in “Boogie Nights.” A good movie, but he is not playing the young action guy anymore. But you still are. You seem to have no age.

A: I think the most important thing is training. I train very hard because I cannot use special effects. Even if I know how to use them, they will not be as good as Steven Spielberg or James Cameron . . . the only thing we can compare to America is action. People say, “Wow, Jackie’s action is better than American.” This is why training for me is very important. Also I’m basically a happy-go-lucky guy. Also, Chinese [he says the following in Cantonese] don’t show their age as much.

Q: What is a Jackie Chan workout?

A: I used to jog every day but after I broke my ankle [on “Rumble in the Bronx”] I can’t jog anymore so I do Stairmaster. I do punch bags and kicking. I also recommend swimming, jogging. I don’t really recommend going into martial arts. Of course if you do martial arts you learn discipline. In our [Peking Opera] school we could not fight. If we fight it was a big problem. I fought once in school with older brother. The teacher caught us and made us fight for real in front of the others. Then he made us sit in front of each other face to face and slap each other. Then the teacher hit us. We never fight in the school again.

Q: This was the Peking Opera school [where Chan was sent by his parents when he was only 7] in Hong Kong? Does it still exist?

A: No, gone. Today you do that, we sue you. Children right now, they have to have a discipline.

Q: Did you feel that you were abused at that school? If you watch “Farewell My Concubine,” for example, the Chen Kaige film that is set in an opera school, it was cruel. Did you feel you were abused as a child?

A: [sighs deeply] Now, I look back at it, yes, it was abuse. I could tell you so many things. You know at the school all the young boys you know wake up in the morning [gestures to show that they would wake up with erections]. The teacher take a stick. WHACK. POW. Everybody. “What are you thinking?” the teacher would say. . . . But I learned discipline from that school. When I go home I put the shoes together. Put the socks inside. Now the children go home [starts yelling] one shoe here, one shoe there, . . . they don’t know about money, they don’t know. When I go to a hotel I wash [things] myself. Because if you give socks, underwear to a hotel you could buy another one for the same price.

Q: You still wash your own underwear in hotels?

A: Yes, underwear, socks, shoes. I shine my own shoes.

Q: At the Beverly Hills Hotel?

A: [emphatically] Yes, ask my manager. Every time he goes out with me he brings 30 underwear. I ask him why? He says he changes them every day. I say, why don’t you wash yourself? He’s just not used to it. And also, he doesn’t like hanging things all over the bathroom. I said, “What’s wrong?” Every day at night I wash. Then I can save money.

And also the big towels in the hotels. I can use them more than once. I keep telling them, “Don’t change them.” I go to the Beverly hotel I use the soap one day, two days. I take the shower cap and wrap the soap in it and travel with it. I go to New York two days, Miami one day, all these places I use the same soap. The whole trip I use one soap. Why, because the new generation they just waste it. They don’t care. When we were young we didn’t have soap.

Q: As you know, Hong Kong in the past 18 months has gone through a political change, ceasing to be a British colony and becoming part of China. Do you have a political side?

A: No. Movies. I just make movies. I don’t like politics. If you see my movies there is no politics. Always happy-go-lucky. I don’t care who is the leader in Hong Kong, China or the British. I just do whatever I want. . . . I don’t vote.

Q:What about your future?

A: After “Rush Hour’s” success I was supposed to stay in America. But I think, no, I have to make one film for Asia only--”Gorgeous.” Then after that I’m going back to America to make maybe my own project, call it “Chinese Cyclone”--wrote this story 10 years ago about a Qing Dynasty man who goes west to meet cowboys, Indians. I have an Indian wife. I have a Caucasian wife, then I have a Chinese girlfriend, because all of the things are based on misunderstandings. When I first had this idea, “Dances With Wolves” came out. Similar, although mine was more comedy. But before, nobody listened to me. They are looking for some director for me. Maybe Disney.

Q: What about another physical comedian, Jerry Lewis? There’s a rumor that they are considering you for a remake of one of the old Jerry Lewis movies?

A: Yes, they have one for me. “Bellboy.”

Q: Is that going to happen? Do you like Jerry Lewis?

A: Yes, I saw so many of his movies. [in Cantonese] With “Bellboy” I think you can make a lot of different things. I tell the producer-directors I don’t want to be police anymore.

Q: So you are sick of playing cops and policemen?

A: [grimaces] Ah yes. Policeman again and again. For me to go to America like Chow Yun-Fat or Jet Li, our problem is the English problem. We are not like Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro--any good script they can pick up. They can act. They can say I want to be a lawyer. I never can be a lawyer. OK, now I’m a police from Hong Kong. Chow Yun-Fat, killer from Hong Kong. Jet Li, killer from China. Samo Hung, police from China. Next movie, Chow Yun-Fat, undercover cop.We are so limited. Not like in Hong Kong, where I can play a lawyer. I can act Wall Street like Michael Douglas.

Q:You’ve been in hundreds of movie fights. Have you ever been in a real fight?

A: Yes, when I was young. I was 16 years old in Hong Kong. Three of us were walking. There were six motorcycles, off-road bikes. I was crossing the street. I pointed. I said, “Oh, one of my dreams.” This guy turned around and said, “What are you looking for?” My friend knocks the six motorcycles over [gestures how they all fall down, domino fashion]. Big fight. All six guys end up on the ground. After I ran I looked down, my shoes were filling with blood. My hand, something white sticking out of it.

I went into the shop and bought some new jeans. Crossed the street and saw an ambulance come. I was afraid I had killed someone. I saw this white thing sticking out of my hand. I thought it was a bone. I could not push it back in. Two days later it was infected with pus. I tried to push it in but it hurt. It came out. It was a tooth.

Q: Did you ever use the motorcycles in a movie?.

A: Yes, I did. In my film “Mr. Nice Guy.”

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Also contributing to this story was Times Hong Kong researcher Jennifer Wang.