Fifteen years ago I came to Hollywood. I was famous in Asia. Then I thought, "it’s about time that I come into America." It was every actor and actress’ dream. I said, "Goodbye" to Asia.
I bought a house in Los Angeles, studied my English, and made a movie. But, it didn’t work. I tried again. I starred in Cannonball Run one, and two, but it didn’t work.
The American market is too difficult. Also, I know that if I came to the American market that I have to speak perfect English, but, that’s my problem.
I always do a lot of research and at that time I asked myself why my movies didn’t work. I had all of my boys, my writers, everybody, write a report to me, telling me why they thought it didn’t work. The answer came back to me, "Jackie’s action is not power. He can’t knock somebody down with one punch. After ten or twenty punches, the guy he’s fighting is still standing there."
I said, "No, I’m not really fighting. For me, fighting is an art."
But in America that doesn’t work. It must be one punch and the guy is knocked down. I found that out but I had failed already so I went back to Asia to make my Jackie Chan style movies.
I broke into every major market: Germany, South Africa, even Algeria, Morocco. But, still, not America. I don’t know why. So, in my mind, I totally forgot America. I never thought that my movies would come to America again.
In Asia I had total control of my movies. What I remember about The Protector is a trailer. My English teacher would stay with me and make me repeat lines:
"What’s the next line?"
"Get rid of the gun."
"Ok, say 'Get rid of the gun.'"
"Get rid of the gun."
"Get-rid-of-the-gun."
"Get rid of the gun."
"Ok, you’ve got it."
I would stay there a whole hour until I had to go back to the set. I would go out of the motor home and a limousine would take me back to the set where I would see a guy who looked exactly like me who was my stand in. He would leave and I would stand where he was.
"Rolling! Quiet! Action!"
"Get rid of the gun."
"Good! Back to the motor home!"
I would take the limousine back and practice my next line for another hour. "Welcome to New York." Do you know how bored I was? It drove me nuts!!!
I asked if I could do stunts but they would refuse. They would always change my ideas and I found that if it doesn’t work in America, it doesn’t work in Asia. I lost two markets.
Back in Asia, I’m in total control. What you see in the movies is the real me. Now I never change. Whatever character I am, I just act like me.
Rumble in the Bronx coming out in America is like a dream. If I had really thought that it was coming to the American market, I would have done so many things differently. I would have everyone speaking English and would have filmed in the Bronx. But, I didn’t think it was coming to the American market, and, also, it’s so expensive to make movies in New York.
Later on we found it was too difficult pretending to be in New York. We were going to call it "Rumble In Vancouver" but it was too late. All the dialogue and graffiti was done already. At first we would tell the camera, "Move a little bit, it’s too Vancouver," but later on we would say, "Aw, what the hell, just shoot it!" Not too many people, except North Americans, even know what the Bronx is! If I knew that I was coming back to America with this movie there wouldn’t be any mountains in it.
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