Jackie Chan's New Movie Too Violent for China

One of my favorite personal Hollywood stories, and I don't have many, is sitting across from Jackie Chan during the junket for The Tuxedo. I know. And he felt exactly the same way. Because there's very little of what I associate with Jackie Chan in that movie, I didn't ask him any questions about it, exploring instead his classics like Legend of Drunken Master and Police Story. He was happy to talk about them, and the freedom he enjoyed while making them, to the point that he said at the end of the interview - in front of the studio folks - "All my Hong Kong movies better than my American movies." Gotta love a guy trashing his own film. I have another favorite story, one about Jamie Foxx refusing to look at me during an interview, but we'll save that until The Soloist comes out. Anyway, I mention Chan's Hong Kong movies because his latest, Shinjuku Incident, has been deemed too gory for Chinese release, by both the film's director and by Chan himself. "We tried to cut the violent scenes to meet the requirements of the Chinese market, but producers I invited to watch that version thought it was incomplete," said director Tung-Shing Yee. "For us, the problem was just the violence." Even though Chan's films are violent, it's that poetic, choreographed hand-to-hand combat. About the most gruesome thing you see is someone falling a few stories, usually Chan. But there's not usually a lot of bloodletting in his movies. That's what makes Shinjuku so different. Jackie plays a hitman for the Japanese mob, and there are scenes showing "hands being chopped off and pierced with knives." Yikes. That doesn't sound like Chan at all. But now I want to see it. We'll have to wait a while over in the states; Shinjuku Incident will be released in Hong Kong in April and in Japan in May.

Comments

[Will]

Even in his Hollywood films, Mr. Chan simply is not as spry as he once was. Still, I'd like to see him get back to his roots (A-la-Rocky Balboa) and whoop some serious ass...

[Asana]

Jamie Foxx wouldn't look at you during an interview? You were making goofy faces at him weren't you Colin?