Jackie Chan is late.
After 15 minutes, Jackie strolls in and takes his seat. He then offers a quick, sheepish grin. At this point, Jackie’s charisma has cast away any objectionable sentiments about his tardiness. A deep, collective sigh suddenly lets out, as the cast of interviewers appears noticeably more nervous than Jackie himself. First question of the day: “After working with Owen Wilson and Chris Tucker, how was it working with Jennifer Love Hewitt?”
“Oh, pretty good,” Jackie replies with a half smirk. Having known Jennifer’s impressive set of credentials, the room fills with soft laughter. “I think she is more … more what?” Jackie pauses in search of a word. “Pretty?” suggests an intervieer. “Yeah, pretty. Easier to get close–because most of the time she’s not in a trailer — she’s outside with everybody. She really brings a lot of happiness on the set.” Jackie adds.
Responding to what it was like to work with special effects for the first time, Jackie hints an expression of confusion, “There are a lot of things that I don’t know about. Sometimes they cover my whole body and only use my hands.” Clearly having been frustrated with the technology, Jackie continues to simultaneously complain and explain the intricacies of mixing stunt work and green screens. As Jackie elaborates on the difficulty involved, I find myself concurring with his evaluation of the special effects in the film.
The application of special effects in “The Tuxedo” takes away from the fluidity of the action sequences. The movie takes the greatest living action star and tries to convince people that he is not a special agent or a martial artist, but rather just a simple taxi driver that requires a super tuxedo to do amazing things. Putting Jackie Chan in front of a green screen is like telling Pamela Anderson to wear turtlenecks on “Baywatch.”
“If not for Dreamworks and Spielberg, I would never do this movie. I have no confidence to do this special effects movie,” Jackie explains. “I sit down with [Spielberg], I talk to him and when he asked me to be a director, I said, ‘I’m not going to be a director because I don’t know special effects.’ He said, ‘Okay, let’s do ‘The Tuxedo’ and pick up the director.’ So I said, ‘Good.'”
Jackie is quizzed about the variations in the American and Hong Kong styles of moviemaking, placing specific emphasis on the fact that his American movies seem to be toned down in comparison to his Hong Kong features. Jackie pauses for a moment and continues, “Hong Kong style has more freedom, saves money. It’s also quicker and sometimes more dangerous. American way — safer, but wastes a lot of money and wastes a lot of time.” To clarify, Jackie points out that a stunt in “The Tuxedo” was deemed too dangerous for him to perform during the actual take, even though he personally felt it was routine. He did not end up doing the stunt, but he recalls doing the rehearsals.
As much as Jackie enjoys the Hong Kong format, he gives American movies a vote of confidence: “The good thing [about American films] is that sometimes I do get hurt in Hong Kong films.”
Despite all his success, Jackie understands he cannot satisfy both the Asian and the American audiences. “For me making an American movie means it is for the American market and Europe. If I make an Asian film, it is for the Asian market. A few years ago, I realized my [Asian] films are only successful in Asia, the only success in America and Europe is the video market.” He indicates that this was the learning experience involved with “Rush Hour” series, which was a tremendous hit in the States, but did not fare as well overseas. His awareness, his inability to satisfy the two very different sensitive audiences leads him to recognize he has to go back and forth, producing a movie for each market yearly.
For a middle-aged man, Jackie Chan certainly doesn’t show many signs of slowing down. In addition to “The Tuxedo,” Jackie has already finished “Shanghai Knights,” with “Highbinders” and “Around the World in 80 Days” lined up. On top of it all, he will return to Hong Kong to finish a new action film called “Titanium Ring.”
“The Tuxedo” is a mediocre film, but as is the rule with Jackie Chan movies, the audience cares little about the script or story. What they do care about is the action. Weak as the action may be in this film, it will have to be Jackie’s appeal, charisma and unique action style that will have to win over audiences to make this flick a success.
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