Chow the Hollywood hitman
The change in Chow Yun-fatt is palpable. A year ago, he was a Hong Kong actor waiting for his first Hollywood project to come off, struggling with English and feeling a little frustrated at the long wait a studio picture entails.
Now he bounds across the set of The Replacement Killers in the 30-degree-Celsius heat of central Los Angeles, eight kilograms lighter and fluent in his new tongue.
Some things do not change, however: renowned for his portrayals of cold-blooded killing machines, the 42-year-old Lamma-ite has always been surprisingly sweet-natured off camera. And the fact he is the pivot of a US$26 million (HK$201 million) picture - the only movie Columbia has on its books at the moment - and the occupant of a luxury trailer with an assistant to order his lunches, has not diminished the charm.
Shortly before production started on The Replacement Killers, directed by Antoine Fuqua and co-starring Academy Award-winning actress Mira Sorvino, Chow took the cast and crew out to dinner. Columbia's head of production Teddy Zee noted this was the first occasion he had seen an actor dig into his own pocket.
'A stuntman told me last week that if he had to work on Chow Yun-fatt movies for the rest of his life, he'd be happy,' says producer Matthew Bauer. 'I think he speaks for all of us.' Today, Chow is being called upon to fire off rounds from a sub-machine gun as part of a movie which is 50 per cent action. He hits his marks, and handles the gun like the seasoned pro he is: as Chow acknowledges, the plot of The Replacement Killers is not a major departure for him.
In it, he plays a professional assassin who baulks at a triad-ordered hit. Fleeing the mob - who have sent two 'replacement killers' including Jurgen Prochnow out to murder him - Chow takes passport-forger Sorvino hostage in order to flee the United States and protect his Hong Kong family from the triads.
In cult Hong Kong movies such as A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled (all for director John Woo, currently putting finishing touches to the US$90 million Face Off with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage), Chow has played a hitman with a heart of gold before. But never in English.