A rundown of Jackie Chan at the Academy

"Police Story 3" Japanese Theatrical Poster

This past Monday – June 3rd – the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted a salute to Jackie Chan. The event began with a conversation between Jackie and Entertainment Weekly’s Geoff Bucher and concluded with a screening of the Academy’s print of Police Story III: Supercop.

Boucher provided little introduction, other than to say that watching Chan’s films is like watching Fred Astaire beat the crap out of people. Chan then emerged from behind the stage’s heavy red curtain – the stage itself is flanked by enormous gold replicas of Oscar statues – to a standing ovation that lasted until Jackie insisted the crowd calm down.

The conversation proved not so much a discussion, but rather a series of prompts provided by Boucher, in response to which Chan spoke with boundless enthusiasm for as long as fifteen minutes at a stretch. The martial arts legend, stood up, sat down, assumed fight stances, comically fell out of his chair, and did a spot-on, absolutely hilarious impression of Bruce Lee.

Topics covered in the chat ran the gamut from Jackie’s start as a stunt man to his visit to the set of Avatar; from the first time he saw his name on a movie poster to the first time he met Chris Tucker. In one particularly hilarious anecdote, he described meeting James Cameron and not understanding a word Cameron said. Chan, however, pretended he understood to avoid the awkwardness of admitting he didn’t.

He did admit, however, that he always, always gets nervous before a big stunt, no matter the number of crazy, outlandish things he’s done in his life. He confessed that he sometimes wishes he’d be born American, so he could avoid the ludicrous things he does in the service of his films.

During the conversation, Jackie dropped a number of priceless pieces of information for martial arts and Chan fans, and cinephiles in general. Here are some highlights:

• Chan began his career training for the Beijing Opera. An economic downturn led to a dearth of opportunities in the opera, however, leading Chan to focus on martial arts films.

• Drunken Master was made with a budget of $150,000. Police Story III: Supercop cost a mere $900,000.

• For his early starring roles, Chan was paid $9000 per film, over half of which he paid to the employees of his own production company. He pocked about $4000 per picture.

• The Hong Kong film industry tried fashioning Chan into another Bruce Lee. Chan, feeling his personality was very different than Lee’s, worked hard with his choreographer to develop a different style, one that would stand out in a landscape of Bruce Lee imitators. So, for instance, rather than looking tough after punching someone, as Lee did, Chan came up with the idea of looking weak and hurt after a fight. This was the birth of his comedic style.

• Chan was annoyed by Chris Tucker’s lack of professionalism on set during the first Rush Hour, and often had difficulty understanding his co-star – hence the line, “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?” However, Tucker is now the only American actor Chan has worked with with whom he remains in touch.

• Chan isn’t interesting in doing Expendables 3 – rather, he wants to do a buddy cop film with Stallone.

• When Jackie first experienced financial success, he put some money into digital effects. However, no one at his company could figure out how to use them properly, so he abandoned the idea and decided to continue focusing on things that could be done in front of the camera. Even today, he claims to have very limited knowledge of digital equipment and film making.

• Jackie experienced so many problems with theater owners, distributors, and others editing his films in ways that didn’t make sense that he began making multiple cuts of his films, so he could provide a movie of just the right length for the interested party.

• His most recent action extravaganza, CZ12, took seven years from the first draft of the script until its release.

• Chan described the process of jumping from the building to the helicopter ladder during Police Story III: Supercop as like a public execution. The press in Malaysia somehow got wind of the stunt, and dozens of photographers lined the street below the building, waiting for the jump. Terrified of messing up, Chan forgot to calculate the down draft of the helicopter into the jump and came very close to missing the ladder completely and falling from the roof of the building.

The conversation concluded with more thunderous, standing applause and a few hopeful autograph seekers storming the stage unsuccessfully, as security escorted Chan back behind the enormous red curtain (to see video excerpts, click here).

A few moments later, the curtain opened, and the audience was treated to a screening of Police Story III: Supercop. The Academy 35mm print of the film contained the Cantonese language track, with Mandarin and English subtitles, and ran ten minutes longer than the version released theatrically and on home video in the United States.

This longer cut of the film balanced the movie perfectly, adding action and drama to play against the film’s sillier moments. Unlike the theatrically released version, the Academy cut didn’t err too much to the side of silly comedy, but rather struck the perfect balance between the film’s two personalities.

Finally, the event coincided the the Academy’s ongoing exhibition Kick Ass! Kung Fu Posters from the Stephen Chin Collection. The exhibition, up in the Academy theater library until August 25th, features hundreds of vintage movie posters from the 70’s.

All in all, it was, (and apologies in advance for this), a Chantastic event.