JOURNEY TO THE WEST, PART THREE [310 a 315]

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JOURNEY TO THE WEST, PART THREE

It turned out that making the decision to try Hollywood again was the easy part.

Finding the right project—

Well, that was another thing entirely.

I got offers to do American movies all the time, but hardly ever in a way that I thought made sense. Michael Douglas, for instance, had invited me to play the part of a Japanese killer in his movie Black Rain. Well, not only did the film make Asians look bad, but why would my fans want to see me as a bad guy?

To go from being a hero in Asia to being a villain in America didn’t make any sense. If I was going to make a movie in Hollywood, it had to be one that would appeal to my fans in China, Japan, Thailand, and the rest of the world as well. Asians may want to see Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise, but they don’t want to see them beat up one of their own idols. That’s kind of insulting, don’t you think? (Especially when you and I know that just about any trained Hong Kong martial arts star could make an American actor look pretty bad in a fight. This isn’t boasting. Just the facts.)

Then Sylvester Stallone talked with me about a project in which I’d play a drug dealer who’d have a change of heart and turn into a good guy. I still didn’t like it; I didn’t want to play a pusher on screen, even one who gets reformed. Stallone knows that I’ve always enjoyed his movies, and that I admire him very much, and over time, we’ve gotten to be friends. But I couldn’t compromise my values, even to work with a friend.

It got so I was beginning to think I’d never find a project that was right for me. Bruce Willis suggested we make a movie together, but there wasn’t a script around that fit our personalities. Wesley Snipes wanted me for a film called Confucius Brown, in which we’d play long-lost brothers. (He and Woody Harrelson also played “brothers” in Money Train. Wesley’s family is starting to look like the U.N.!)

I had problems with the script, and my schedule and Wesley’s ended up getting crossed up, so Confucius Brown never happened, although I heard that it might be back on track again—with Michelle Yeoh playing the role I was supposed to play. I guess the script’s been rewritten.

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(Coincidentally, another film Stallone had offered me was Demolition Man, a movie with Sandra Bullock from Speed. He wanted me to play a supervillain running loose in the far future, chased by a supercop, played by him. I didn’t feel right about that role either. It ended up going to Wesley Snipes—so the two people I’d wanted to work with, and couldn’t, ended up working with each other.)

“This isn’t working, Willie,” said. “All of the scripts we’ve seen so far have been pretty lousy.”

“Oh, come on, Jackie, we’ve only just begun,” he said, trying to cheer me up. “Besides, we haven’t even had any real meetings yet—I’m sure once we start getting together with producers in Hollywood, things will get better. That’s when we’ll start seeing some substance, dear boy.”

The whole time that we were searching for the right Hollywood project, I continued making movies in Hong Kong: Crime Story, a dark and somewhat grim police thriller directed by Kirk Wong; Drunken Master II, a sequel to my first big hit (and the first traditional-style kung fu movie I’d made in more than ten years); and Rumble in the Bronx, directed by Stanley Tong Kwei-la, my good friend and one of my favorite collaborators. Stanley is a former stuntman himself, and Leonard had introduced him to me as someone whose style he thought would mesh well with mine. As usual, Leonard was right; Stanley has made possible some of my most spectacular action scenes ever, beginning with Supercop.

In Rumble, Stanley and I took the idea of making an “international” Hong Kong film—one that would be as accessible to Western audiences as for Eastern ones—as far as it could go.

I’d cast European model Lola Forner in Wheels on Meals and Armour of God, and both were shot on location abroad. In Armour of God II: Operation Condor, I had three lovely costars—Carol Dodo Cheng from Hong Kong, Shoko Ikeda from Japan, and Eva Cobo de Garcia from Spain—the idea being to cover as many markets as possible. Most of that film was shot outside of Asia, too, in Spain and Morocco.

But the setting of Rumble was completely Western. The villains and background characters were all non-Asian. And much of the dialogue was in English.

From the very beginning, Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho believed that Rumble would be my ticket West. They were on the verge of selling a package of my earlier films to U.S. distributors. A movie set in America would seal the deal—and make for a terrific lead-in for a return to Hollywood... my way.

And that’s why, rather than Showdown in Macao or Gang War in Kowloon, my second film with Stanley Tong became Rumble in the Bronx. 

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Even though it was supposed to be set in New York, we shot the movie in Vancouver, Canada—I’m no stranger to taking risks, but making a movie on location in the Bronx seemed crazy even to me. (Anyone who knows what New York looks like can tell that it’s not actually the Bronx, anyway. The architecture is wrong, the streets are different, and there are mountains visible in some of the backgrounds. But then again, if you’re staring at the scenery while I’m fighting, I’m doing something wrong.)

In early 1995, the deal was closed for New Line Cinema to bring Rumble in the Bronx to the United States. The money they paid wasn’t that big, just a couple of million dollars. But as part of the agreement, New Line was going to put their entire publicity machine behind it—and behind me.

“The idea we have isn’t just to introduce people to the movie,” their marketing guy said. “It’s to introduce them to Jackie Chan.”

“I’ve been here before,” I said. “I think people already know me.”

The marketing guy laughed. “Yeah, some people may have seen your American films, and you’ve certainly got a big cult following,” he said. “But seriously, do you think that America—middle America, shopping mall America—knows Jackie Chan? The real Jackie Chan? Do they know you’re the biggest action star in the world?”

I looked over to Willie, who raised an eyebrow at me. The marketing guy had been speaking in English, of course, and even after all these years, my English wasn’t perfect.

It didn’t matter.

This guy was talking in a language I could understand.

Rumble in the Bronx would be the film that would show audiences in the U.S. the real Jackie Chan. And New Line’s publicity push would put me on the covers of magazines, in newspapers, on talk shows. Not as some kind of strange animal, or Bruce Lee clone, or one-hit wonder who’d just gotten off the boat from Hong Kong. As the biggest star in the world.

“Biggest star in the world, I don’t know,” I said. “Biggest star in Asia, yes.”

That drew a shrug from the marketing guy. “So you’re the biggest star in the biggest continent in the world. Billions of people love Jackie Chan. Let’s not get hung up on the details.”

That’s when I remembered something. I leaned over and whispered in Willie’s ear, and then smiled at the marketing guy a little sheepishly.

“Jackie has a small request,” said Willie. “Rather simple, I believe, but really, it means a lot to him...”

And so there I was, some months later, standing on a burgundy red carpet, as flashbulbs popped and video cameras whirred and the crowd shouting my name and asking for autographs.

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Hundreds of people lined the walkway, most of whom had probably never heard of me half a year before—but who’d decided to wait for hours on this warm Los Angeles night, just to see me walk into my first-ever gala premiere.

It was everything I ever imagined on all those long-lost evenings; the nights I spent watching films from Hollywood’s glorious past, slouched in cramped Hong Kong theaters with terrible sound.

This was the way that Hollywood was supposed to be.

This was being a star in America.

Rumble in the Bronx made $9.8 million on its opening weekend, becoming the first Hong Kong film ever to make it to number one at the U.S. box office. It went on to make over $30 million—a spectacular hit for New Line, an indie studio whose movies usually earned a third of that, or less.

And Hollywood sat up and took notice.

I’d gotten an American agent, Brian Gersh, who was with the William Morris Agency. He set up meetings for me and Willie to take—in Hollywood, people always “take” meetings; they don’t “have” them. I got an avalanche of offers—although I have to say, I wasn’t used to the way showbiz works here in the States. It’s all talking, talking, talking; everything seems to be happening, but nothing is real. Nothing can be trusted until the movie starts shooting—and even then, you should probably wait until it actually arrives in the theaters, just to be safe. One producer even claimed to have four scripts for me, all with famous directors and actors attached to them. I was impressed, until he admitted that none of the directors or actors had actually agreed to do the movies yet. And then he asked me for an autograph for his daughter!

“In Hong Kong, if I say I want a movie to happen, it happens,” I said to Willie, pacing around my hotel room one day. “I can’t even believe they make movies in this city. All they seem to make is conversation. What do you think the ratio is here—ten meetings equals one project?”

“More like a thousand meetings,” said Willie philosophically. “But please, Jackie, did you think just one meeting would be enough to iron out a deal? You’ve waited for fifteen years to come back to Hollywood; you can wait a few more months.”

John Hughes wanted me to star in a film called The Bee, in which I’d play a guy trying to catch a bee that seemed to have a mind of its own. The movie would have given me the chance to do some very funny stunts, but to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to make my return to Hollywood in a film where I was stupider than a bug.

Between all the meetings, Willie and I returned to Hong Kong, where I kept on making films: Thunderbolt, Police Story IV: First Strike, and Mr. Nice Guy. All three were also bought by U.S. studios for American release.

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I was in the middle of making Mr. Nice Guy—which was directed by none other than Biggest Brother Samo—when I got a call from Willie, who told me that my agent in America had exciting news for me.

“A movie with Spielberg?” I said, a little sarcastically. Nothing ever came out of Hollywood but “exciting news,” and it almost always bored me to death.

“Mmm, no, but that would be exciting,” said Willie. “Of course, if you’re going to be so testy, perhaps I won’t tell you the news at all.”

 If it were anyone else, I could have put him in a headlock and made him tell me, but instead I said, “Please,” which works better with Willie anyway.

“Well, Jackie, remember your second Hollywood wish?”

If you walk down Hollywood Boulevard, between Highland and La Brea, you’ll see Mann’s Chinese Theater—formerly Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

It’s not very Chinese at all, actually; all the decoration is cheesy and fake, or it would be, if it weren’t such a famous and historic showbiz spot.

But I helped make it a little more Chinese that day, on January 5, 1997—putting my handprints, my footprints, my signature, and even my nose-print into the cement outside, in a ceremony that fulfilled my second big Hollywood wish.

And while I was out there to do the ceremony, I finally got a deal started on a movie that should be out in the theaters right now, Rush Hour—my return to America, not as Bruce Lee, not as Clint Eastwood, not as John Wayne... but as Jackie Chan.

If it fails, I have many more movies to make in Hong Kong. If it does okay, I have many movies I want to make in Hollywood. I’d like to work with James Cameron. With Steven Spielberg. With Stallone, and Bruce Willis, and Robert DeNiro. There are so many of us Chinese stars here in Hollywood now, maybe we could all do a project together—my old friend John Woo directing, my old costar Michelle Yeoh as female lead, Chow Yun-fat and Jet Li and me as a team!

Maybe that isn’t possible in Hollywood today. The studios wouldn’t know how to market a movie with so many Chinese in it. But oh, imagine how much money that movie would make in Asia!

I’ve been on David Letterman and Jay Leno.

I’ve gotten an award on MTV.

I was a presenter at the Academy Awards. While I was there, Robin Williams, Tom Hanks, John Travolta, they all came up to me and told me they were fans.

The other day, one of my favorite singers, Lionel Richie, came to visit me on the set. Yesterday, Michael Jackson gave me a call.

Hollywood has opened its doors to me and made me feel at home.

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But even if Hollywood turns me away in the future, I’ve already gone farther than I imagined, far beyond my dreams.

I was a useless child.

A ragged boy.

A reckless teen.

And now—

Look who I  am now!