Kung fu cowboy
JACKIE CHAN SAYS the faded family photographs tell the story. Like young boys all round the world, he grew up dreaming of being a cowboy. Now, 40 years later, those dreams have come true.
In Shanghai Noon, his latest Hollywood vehicle, Chan takes on the Wild West. And you can still see that little cowboy in the 47-year-old's eyes. During a brief stopover in the SAR last Friday - fresh from an appearance on the Jay Leno Show the night before, followed by the red-eye express from Los Angeles - Chan was bubbling with enthusiasm for the project, delighted he had finally been given his chance to ride the range.
'If you look at any of my biographies, you can see me at five years old wearing a cowboy hat. I was always a big, big fan of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Kurt Douglas,' Chan says. 'Being a cowboy was always my dream. When I entered the film business, I wanted to write a cowboy script. About 20 years ago, I wrote a script called Western Story. My English was not that good so I just called it Western ... Story! I posted it to Golden Harvest and they refused it. They thought at the time, 'It's Jackie Chan directing, starring and it's in America. So expensive! It's way out of our budget'.
'So I just forgot about the project. Then, after [1998's box-office smash] Rush Hour, I received so many scripts. But I was not really happy. Either it was me as a policeman from Hong Kong, a policeman again from China; or a killer from Hong Kong, a killer from China. I was asking myself, why? Why do you give me all those same roles? But it's the language problem. How can I play a policeman from New York? 'So they say, 'We have a new idea. You escape from China. Hide in Chinatown. You meet the mafia, then you save the girl. She's from China and has become a hooker'. Why when Chinese come into American films they are always the bad man, the woman always the hooker? I say, 'I have a film for you - Western Story'. Bang, they like it and the next day they send over two writers and away we go.' And it's a good job they did. Shanghai Noon breathes new life into Chan's brand of action and humour, teaming him up in unfamiliar surroundings with Owen Wilson, who co-wrote the acclaimed Rushmore and has starred in such films as The Haunting and Armageddon.
The pair are thrown together as they search for and try to rescue a kidnapped Chinese princess (played by Ally McBeal's Lucy Liu), who has been dragged out of the Forbidden City and dumped in the Wild West. It is an inspired piece of casting as the chemistry between the two is electric.
'Honestly, I didn't know who Owen Wilson was, or even Lucy Liu,' Chan says. 'I only know who a few of the really big American stars are. So the producer says he has Owen Wilson. I think he doesn't look funny, but he is really funny. He is also a scriptwriter, so he helped me a lot changing the dialogue. If I had any trouble, he would make it easy. And now we have become good friends.
'The great thing is, we start part two next year,' Chan says. 'We will start the story in China, then I come to New York to find Owen and we take the boat to London where we meet up with Sherlock Holmes. It sounds like a great story.' Once again, in Shanghai Noon Chan manages to conjure up some amazing fight scenes from settings we have seen countless times before. He finds new uses for a horseshoe in an alley fight, and there's no doubt there has never been a bar-room brawl where the main weapon is a set of moose antlers.