Jackie Chan told a Q&A audience in Locarno that he believes the big Hollywood studios are stifling contemporary filmmaking with what he described as their obsession with money.
“I think the old movies are better than today,” Chan said.
“Right now, a lot of big studios, they’re not filmmakers, they’re business guys. They invest 40 million and think, ‘How can I get it back?’ And you can’t go over. It’s very difficult to make a good movie now.”
Chan was speaking with Locarno head Giona Nazzaro this morning at a packed-out Q&A session, where he ran through his career credits, telling multiple lucid and highly entertaining stories about his start in the business, working in Hollywood, and how he completed many of his most dangerous stunts.
The major throughline during the discussion was Chan’s dedication to cinema craft, particularly how he worked to learn every role on a film’s set, from stunt direction to acting and sound. Chan later joked that in Asian cinema, there were only two performers who had the same expansive skillset.
“In all of Asia, only two directors can do everything: the writing, directing, acting, stunt coordinating, stunt fighting, and editing. Only two,” he began. “One is Sammo Hung, the second one is Jackie Chan.”
The veteran Hong Kong actor later added: “And I’m better because I know how to sing.”
Chan continued to tell the audience in Locarno that he made a concerted effort to learn how to sing because he didn’t see a future as only a stunt performer. Chan pointed specifically to his early appearances on late-night U.S. talk shows, where he was often asked to perform stunts or fight.
“I cannot do this forever. It’s just so dangerous,” Chan recalled thinking. “Whatever station I would go to, they ask me how to punch and kick. I thought, What should I do? I should learn how to sing. Then I started trying to learn how to sing.”
Chan added that he quickly switched his professional goals to prioritize longevity and his working mantra was: “I wanna be the Asian Robert De Niro.”
However, Chan told the audience that in the early 2000s, he gave up on making Hollywood films because he was unable to connect with American audiences, and he disliked the quality of scripts he was being given.
Chan added that he decided to try one more project before leaving the U.S. behind entirely, and it was his now-seminal buddy cop flick, Rush Hour.
“Rush Hour. It was the last try. If it doesn’t succeed, then I finish,” Chan said, adding that the film’s production wasn’t perfect, with constraints on budget and smaller space for action sequences. But it was a start, he said.
“I think Rush Hour changed the culture,” Chan said.
The veteran Hong Kong actor added that his career goal in Hollywood has always been to “be a cross-cultural bridge between the US and China.”
Chan was in Locarno this year to receive the festival’s Pardo alla Carriera award for career achievement. His early directorial films, Project A and Police Story, screened at the festival.
Locarno ends on August 16.
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