Jackie Chan 'Hi-ya'

2002-09-26 12:34

Bob Tourtellotte

Los Angeles - While Hollywood searches for the next big action hero, Jackie Chan just wants his next acting gig. That's right, acting, and a little love.

His new movie, The Tuxedo, debuts internationally on Friday, featuring Chan's trademark martial arts fighting and the comic sidekick his fans have come to expect in his Hollywood movies. But Tuxedo also adds something new for Chan - romance - in the form of Jennifer Love Hewitt.

And in his own way, Chan is finally getting the chance to try out his acting chops in a romantic company.

Think of an Asian Cary Grant crossed with John Wayne, Redford and Stallone or, for younger audiences, Spider-Man Tobey Maguire meets, well, Tobey Maguire.

"I don't want Rush Hour 1, 2, 3, 4, 5," Chan said in an interview, referring to the enormously successful box office hits in which he starred opposite comedian Chris Tucker.

"Some day I really want to be only an actor. The actor's life is long. Action star's life is very short," he said.

A veteran of well over 100 films, mostly made in Hong Kong, and a superstar in Asia, Chan has been making strong inroads into Hollywood movies in the 1990s.

Rush Hour (1998) and Rush Hour 2 (2001), in which he played a Hong Kong cop, raked in $245 million and $329 million, respectively, worldwide.

Shanghai Noon (2000) a western in which Chan was a sort of bodyguard to an Asian princess alongside a reluctant gunslinger (Owen Wilson) was successful enough to spawn a sequel, Shanghai Knights, due in theatres in February.

But Chan has been around the movies and in Hollywood long enough to know that at 48 years old, his days of high kicks and death-defying stunts are nearing an end.

A chance to act

For the past year, at least, he has been talking about changing his career and The Tuxedo is his first chance. "I have to let audiences see I have different style," he said.

In the movie, Chan portrays a lowly taxi driver named Jimmy Tong, a normal guy who is comfortable in a T-shirt and blue jeans and likes his job okay, but he has a hard time with the ladies and could use a little more cash in his pocket.

When Tong lands a chauffeur's job for rich man-about-town Clark Devlin, who doubles as a secret agent for a super-secret government agency, CSA, he thinks he may now have the status, the cash and the clothes to score his dream date.

Enter Hewitt, who shows up as fellow CSA agent Del Blaine, a geeky scientist looking for her first shot at field work.

"I get kind of excited about getting beat up and thrown around," said a joking Hewitt. She just goes by "Love" with her friends.

Although more seriously, the 23-year-old who was born in Texas and got her break on TV drama Party of Five, said she has always been something of a tomboy since she was young and a huge fan of Chan's.

"The main reason I wanted to be in the movie was because of him," said Love during an interview with Chan.

When agent Devlin is hurt in a bomb explosion - a fact that remains unknown to the CSA - Tong dons his bosses' gadget-filled tuxedo and finds he can to anything Devlin could. Quickly, he assumes Devlin's identity.

He's got the sexy job and he's got a sexy suit. All he needs is the girl. That comes soon enough when Blaine and the new Tong (aka Devlin) pair up to catch a villain with a plot to monopolise the world's water supply, then make people thirsty.

If the plot sounds goofy, it is. But Tuxedo is a Jackie Chan movie, after all. It's supposed to make audiences laugh.

Opposites attract

Chan does get a small chance or two to do his acting best within the romantic give-and-take between average guy Tong and geeky gal Blaine.

The fact he's twice her age didn't seem to bother either Chan or Love, but they are in the movies, where the older guys seem to get the younger gals all the time.

Of course, in Tuxedo, it turns out that Blaine is not the meek geek she pretends to be. In fact, she can kick butt right along side Tong in his Armani tux - which makes Love all that more appealing to a guy like Chan.

"She can do everything," Chan said. "Even men say 'I'm not going to do that, Jackie. It's too dangerous, ooh, it's too difficult.' She never says too difficult," Chan said.

In fact, Hewitt cracked her ankle doing a triple kick and had to be taken to the hospital. She didn't tell this to her leading man.

"I said, 'You should tell me.' She said, 'Oh, I just want to be in a Jackie Chan movie'," he added.

When Love was in the hospital, Chan visited here and signed her cast, Love said. She still has it.

"Jackie signed it," she said. "Are you kidding me, of course I [kept it] ... You know what he wrote on it? Stick to dramatic films."

Chan hints that may be where he is headed, to dramatic films, after his first try at romantic comedy.

"I don't want somebody to later mention my name, always 'Jackie Chan'," he said, making a yelping Karate cry, "Hi-ya", and drawing up his hands in a fighting stance.

"Why does nobody ever say, 'Robert De Niro'," he added, with another high-pitched "Hi-ya" and flurry of fists.

Why, indeed.

- Reuters