Jackie Chan, an icon of action-movies, has attended the Far East Film Festival in Udine to present the ambitious Chinese movie “Dragon Blade” directed by his fellow citizen Daniel Lee.
Jackie is a worldwide renown actor, martial arts athlete, producer, director and writer. We had the great opportunity to meet him and we were able to ask him personally the first three questions, before all national newspapers - information websites such as: Panorama, Sky TG 24, My Movies.
So, let’s go straight to the first question we have prepared for him.
URLOPOP – How do you feel about the Americanization of Chinese culture? For how long do you think it will be possible for China to preserve its unique, ancient culture?
JACKIE CHAN – Almost 40 years ago, I tried to bring the action of Chinese movies to the US market but it did not work. 30 years later America invited me, I brought with me the same style but at the right time and it was a huge success. Americans like everything, but when you bring something new, it is really important to get the right timing. Now China is the strongest market in the world, so it's time to take not only the American culture but the culture of the whole of Asia to China. Culture from Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Indonesia.. Cinema speaks an international language and can join any culture together.
URLOPOP – Nowadays the success of a film is measured by its box office result. There are some films that had a poor result at the box office but nonetheless have greatly influenced culture and filmmaking. How do you measure the success of a film?
JACKIE CHAN – When I was young, long, long time ago, the box office was very important, if there were no results nobody invited me. Making money was the first important thing. Slowly, when my movies became famous, I assumed different responsibilities towards society, towards the world. My films have to send a message, especially since we deal with “violence”. My goal now when I make a film is to convey positive messages without thinking about the box office.For example “Drunken Master” has made a lot of money but looking back a few years later I realized that the message it conveyed was wrong. For this in the sequel I tried to convey how much drinking and fighting is wrong, I wanted to correct the mistake made so many years before.
Even in “Dragon Blade” there are important messages of peace, harmony, against war. At the beginning of the film we sing a song with a very important lyrics “the wind blows and the sand pushes me to the desert, to the war, but I keep thinking about home and how I can go back. When the wind will stop then you will also stop the war and I can go home“. We spent 60 million to make that movie, Adrian Brody said “if that movie was made in America it would have cost 200 million, fortunately we are doing it in China” of course if the box office is good and the critics are good, that makes me happy.
I do not need money, I have enough, I want to do something right. 100 years from now my grandchildren will say “this was a great movie” and I would like them not to forget it. They will not talk about me or “Dragon Blade” but a project, something that is not easily forgotten. There are box office flops that we will always remember, even thirty or forty years later and that's what counts.
URLOPOP – You have had an exceptional career as an actor, you started your career as a stuntman doing combat scenes and karate. Lately however in films like “The myth” (2005), “The Founding of a Republic” (2009), “1911” (2011), “Dragon Blade” (2015) for example , unlike Bruce Lee who only made combat films, you seem to have made films which are much more philosophical with an educational aspect, highlighting the history of China. How do you see your career developing in the future?
JACKIE CHAN – Since the 2000s I have changed, I changed the type of character I play in Karate Kid for example, I played an old man. I changed my character because I am not young anymore, I do not what to make always Rushour 1, Rushour 2, Rushour 3, I’m tired of those parts, I want to be a true actor. I want to be an Asian Rober De Niro. Sick of always playing the same roles, I want to change.
I want to be the Asian Robert De Niro! I thought about it this morning, walking around the streets of Udine, I saw a lot of children mimicking kung fu moves and I asked myself “Why when they see Robert De Niro people don’t do all those gestures and instead when they see Jackie they go berserk”. Here, I would like them in ten years time to see me again and pointing say: “There’s Jackie Chan, good actor!”. I wannabe a true actor.
The career of an actor of action is very short, so in recent years I am trying to evolve, I want to be more than Jackie Chan doing kung fu moves, I would like to be remembered as an serious actor.
I know Chinese history, and I do films dealing with Chinese culture because it’s the only one I know, if I go to the US I cannot do American films, if I come to Italy, I cannot do Italian films, so I do the best I can to promote my own country.
URLOPOP – There are a lot of rumors about a sequel to Karate Kid – will we see you again wearing the shoes of Mr. Han. Do you have any news for us?
JACKIE CHAN – We are at the third or fourth draft of the script. Will Smith is very focused to try to finish it. Every time I hear him I ask him to hurry because his son, Jaden Smith, is already almost taller than me. For years, we're working-on, we're working-on … but probably Rush Hour 4 will come first. Oops ... no I was joking ...
URLOPOP – How did the collaboration with Daniel Lee for Dragon Blade start?
JACKIE CHAN – We are both from Hong Kong, but we never met before. One day my cameraman told me “do you know Daniel Lee?”, I said “yes, but not personally” he told me “you should meet him”, then I called him and I said 'Hello, I'm the Big Brother!' (everybody in Hong Kong knows me with that name), and immediately we met each other to discuss about our projects. We talked about doing detective films, kung fu and eventually we decided instead to pursue a new idea, and he did some research, which was very long and complex that led us to produce Dragon Blade.
DANIEL LEE - Dragon Blade will be the film with the biggest budget ever made in the history of China. I would like to point out that two thirds of the movie was shot in the Gobi desert in Mainland China. All the aerial shots that you see in the movie, are not from image bank or something, we shot them by ourselves. It’s not easy, but it’s very enjoyable.
JACKIE CHAN – Oh no! Enjoyable (laughs). We had a thousand extras, we had to go to all the international schools around China to hire students. At the beginning everybody was enthusiastic, but after 4 hours driving in the desert, dressing up, makeup in the desert heat… two days later everybody wanted to go home! It was really hard, wearing armor, two hundred horses, thousands of extras, reaching the location on foot, because we did not want to leave tire marks along the desert, because we didn’t want to waste money in special effects. In five days two thousand boxes of water were gone! We slept from eleven till two thirty in the morning for one and half months! I told Daniel why aren’t we using a green screen and special effects instead of this?? He replied “No, I want to capture the people’s feeling of being in the Gobi desert” he enjoyed the desert very much!
URLOPOP – We have the impression that in Hollywood they are making less productions with martial arts, compared to the past. How has the world of action films changed in recent years?
JACKIE CHAN – Making films of martial arts is not easy, you have to have very good players who can really fight. In Hollywood, there are not many. Maybe there are actors who know how to do action films such as Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone and Matt Damon, who know boxing, but it is a different thing. In films such as Batman, Superman and Spiderman using special effects, they are now able to easily recreate the fighting that sometimes is even better than mine. They spend a lot of money to do it but they can do it really well.
For them it's all so easy. Only I take the risk of receiving an authentic tomahawk while shooting the action. Sometimes I wonder why I'm so stupid! They pretend to do dangerous action scenes and thanks to the special effects they come out with fantastic scenes, I risk my life to make the film truly, using real explosions in my films. While in Hollywood they ask me to pretend to be scared while I'm in the studio in front of the green screen. I love acting in realistic scenes, I like the thrill and excitement. I think the public likes this of my films, I think that they want to see how Jackie Chan really is.
2015
