Hollywood in Houston

The Forbidden Kingdom

The Forbidden Kingdom opens in theatres on April 18th.

Jackie Chan Interview

Jake: With the first shot of the movie, the film pays respects to Bruce Lee and the classic martial artists. How do you pay respect in your work and why is it so important?

Jackie: Because that’s just in my heart. To promote Chinese culture, to promote respect of the “old people,” like Bruce Lee or some old director. Whatever I can do on the screen to promote Chinese culture, like today during the interview I’m wearing a Chinese costume. That’s my country, it’s just part of my martial arts thought. When you learn martial arts, you learn respect. Respect your family, respect your country, be loyal to your country -- loyal to everything! If you’re loyal to your friend, he will be loyal to you. You know, if your father walks up to you, you stand up and bow. This is the culture that I try to promote in my movies. Love. Peace. United.

Jake: I think one of the things that’s going to surprise people about this movie is how funny it is, but that’s not different from your comedic style of fighting, as you’ve always been one to promote adding outtakes at the end of your films. What is it about that added humor to the fight scenes?

Jackie: Action always makes people think I’m very violent. When I see these violent TV shows I say ‘Wow, why do you have to do those kinds of things?’ I love action. I love martial arts. I don’t like violence. In the old day, you didn’t have a choice. You had to protect yourself. You had to protect your family, you had to learn martial arts. These days, we have the police, and if anything happens, you just call. It’s protect, it’s not attack. It’s a different thought process now. Now, martial arts for me is an exercise.

Jake: When people go see this movie, they go in expecting to see who they know is “Jackie Chan.” What is it about this character that you’ve tried to promote and what have you tried to get away from?

Jackie: Away from violence. We put action and comedy together, make this kind of humor. Then when people see it, they get the message. It lets people know, “Wow, you have to respect people. Wow, they fight and laugh. Ha ha ha, funny!” Let more people learn martial arts and when they do, they will respect everything.

Jake: So many things go into making a movie. How do you deal with personal issues and personal loss while trying to maintain the image of who people think Jackie Chan should be?

Jackie: I’m just an ordinary person. Outside of the movie, inside the movie, I’m just me. I’m a loving guy. Some movies are not me. Like in the Forbidden Kingdom, the Old Hop is not me, I’m learning from Marlon. Brando. But the Drunken Master, that’s me. I just be myself. Or with something like New Police Story, it’s a little bit me, a little not me. That’s just my real personality.

Jake: Thank you so much Jackie, I really appreciate it.

Jackie: Thank you!

Collin Chou and Michael Angarano Interview

Jake: In terms of training, do they try to give you an overview of the entire art or do they train you for specific scenes in the movie?

Michael: It’s a very customized kind of martial arts class. For me, the very first thing I have to do was…

Collin: Know the basics.

Michael: Exactly, know the basics. I had to also stretch. I had to make myself able to do the rest of everything. It was about an hour of stretching each day. And then it was a lot of basic kicks, a lot of basic forms. Very basic stuff. Then they would choreograph stuff on the spot and then we would fight. We didn’t rehearse the fights that we did in the movie. Maybe five minutes before the movie.

Jake: Really?!

Michael: Yeah, it was intense.

Jake: Well Collin, if you train for the fight scenes for a different movie, like The Matrix sequels and then you come in do work with this style, how does that differentiate how you approach the fight?

Collin: I can adjust to whatever they do, I have been doing this my whole life. So when I prepared for The Forbidden Kingdom fighting, I just ended up getting to sleep more. (laugh)

Michael: (laughing) Yeah, that was his training. Sleeping.

Jake: And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Collin: (laughing) Nothing wrong with that at all.

Jake: I really think the humor is going to surprise a lot of people in this movie. Was that something that was natural off set that got captured on camera?

Michael: There were funny moments in the script originally but Jackie is a really funny guy and Rob Minkoff, the director, has a terrific sense of humor and so it was only natural to find comedy in a lot of the situations, and it got funnier as we went along. So there was comedy in the script, but I think it’s played off a lot funnier than it was originally intended.

Jake: Yeah, it played very naturally. It doesn’t look scripted or anything at all.

Michael: Well thanks, man.

Collin: You know, it’s those cultural differences that make that comedy. It just happens. I remember when people would surround Michael and the Chinese people would try to communicate with him and they don’t know any English. They would just use their language, just a little bit different. They just pronounced things a little bit differently and they think that it’s English.

Jake: With all of the cultural differences, does that add to the complexities of making the movie when you have two vastly different cultures coming together?

Collin: Well it’s just such a good combination, with the Eastern and the Western cultures coming together. The cultural differences makes a lot of comedy.

Michael: And while you would think that the language barrier would make it so much more difficult, it was almost easier to communicate because you learn to understand each other on such a physical intuition. Just by going (makes wild arm movements), you know why someone is talking about. You go “Oh, okay, right!”

Jake: So by the end of the film, you all have your own little language going on.

Michael: Exactly.

Collin: In the end, everyone’s heart is all in the same place. Trying to make a good movie.

Michael: Everyone had the same intentions.

Jake: So on the last day, was it hard trying to break up at all? You have all formed this family bond -- how do you walk away from that?

Collin: Yeah, we all cried with each other. People think that if Michael and I hug each other, it’s from “Brokeback Mountain” but we say “No! It’s Forbidden Mountain!”

---------------------------

I would like to thank Jackie, Collin and Michael for their time! Houston appreciates it!

- Jake