Jackie Chan advised a Q&A viewers in Locarno that he believes the large Hollywood studios are stifling modern filmmaking with what he described as their obsession with cash.
“I believe the previous motion pictures are higher than in the present day,” Chan stated.
“Proper now, loads of large studios, they’re not filmmakers, they’re enterprise guys. They make investments 40 million and assume, ‘How can I get it again?’ And you’ll’t go over. It’s very troublesome to make a superb film now.”
Chan was talking with Locarno head Giona Nazzaro this morning at a packed-out Q&A session, the place he ran by way of his profession credit, telling a number of lucid and extremely entertaining tales about his begin within the enterprise, working in Hollywood, and the way he accomplished lots of his most harmful stunts.
The key throughline through the dialogue was Chan’s dedication to cinema craft, notably how he labored to study each function on a movie’s set, from stunt path to performing and sound. Chan later joked that in Asian cinema, there have been solely two performers who had the identical expansive skillset.
“In all of Asia, solely two administrators can do every part: the writing, directing, performing, stunt coordinating, stunt combating, and modifying. Solely two,” he started. “One is Sammo Hung, the second is Jackie Chan.”
The veteran Hong Kong actor later added: “And I’m higher as a result of I understand how to sing.”
Chan continued to inform the viewers in Locarno that he made a concerted effort to discover ways to sing as a result of he didn’t see a future as solely a stunt performer. Chan pointed particularly to his early appearances on late-night U.S. discuss reveals, the place he was typically requested to carry out stunts or combat.
“I can’t do that perpetually. It’s simply so harmful,” Chan recalled pondering. “No matter station I’d go to, they ask me the best way to punch and kick. I assumed, What ought to I do? I ought to discover ways to sing. Then I began making an attempt to discover ways to sing.”
Chan added that he shortly switched his skilled targets to prioritize longevity and his working mantra was: “I wanna be the Asian Robert De Niro.”
Nonetheless, Chan advised the viewers that within the early 2000s, he gave up on making Hollywood movies as a result of he was unable to attach with American audiences, and he disliked the standard of scripts he was being given.
Chan added that he determined to attempt yet another venture earlier than leaving the U.S. behind completely, and it was his now-seminal buddy cop flick, Rush Hour.
“Rush Hour. It was the final attempt. If it doesn’t succeed, then I end,” Chan stated, including that the movie’s manufacturing wasn’t excellent, with constraints on price range and smaller area for motion sequences. However it was a begin, he stated.
“I believe Rush Hour modified the tradition,” Chan stated.
The veteran Hong Kong actor added that his profession purpose in Hollywood has all the time been to “be a cross-cultural bridge between the US and China.”
Chan was in Locarno this 12 months to obtain the competition’s Pardo alla Carriera award for profession achievement. His early directorial movies, Venture A and Police Story, screened on the competition.
Locarno ends on August 16.
