Page 31 - Fujifilm Exposure_19 Spider_ok

AND AWAY
AND AWAY
in production
with a special magic - in an enhanced version of what they were earlier, good or evil. That’s what happens to Jackie’s character in the film. Highbinders historically were Chinese gangsters in New York and San Francisco.”
“Even though the film has a very big budget at $35 million, the movie will look far bigger than that on the screen,’’ says Logan. “We’re not wast- ing money. Jackie always bemoans the money wasted on Hollywood pictures. And in this we have two Jackies - the dead one and the re-animated one. So he’s a bargain!
“You can save so much by follow- ing his guidelines. He is very strict about energy and the environment,
without ever being preachy about it. If everyone followed Jackie’s example, there would be enough energy for the whole world.”
The lunch break is called and Jackie Chan settles his lean five-foot- eight frame into a chair on the court- yard of the castle. He insists that any violence in his movies is stylised and never graphic, which broadens his appeal to the widest possible audience.
“The difference between my action movies and other action movies is that I don’t want any blood or vio- lence in mine,” he says. “I love action, but I hate violence. People always
think action movies should be violent, which is why I put so much comedy and humour in my films.”
Asked about his stunts in
Highbinders, Chan describes the most elaborate one, which was shot in Dublin’s docklands. “We did a scene where I climb up this eight-story build- ing and I have just a tiny wire attached to me. We could have done it with a blue screen background and faked it, but I prefer action to look realistic. So I climbed the whole side of the building.”
Unusually, there are two directors on Highbinders - Gordon Chan for the drama scenes and Sammo Hung (TV’s Martial Law) for the action sequences. Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung have been working together since they were children studying acrobatics, martial arts, music and dance at the Peking Opera school back in the early 1960s.
Arthur Chung, who devised the original idea for Highbinders and is producing the film, credits Jackie
Chan’s apprenticeship at the school as the founda- tion for his remarkable fitness 40 years on.
“They had a master who made them totally disciplined. Jackie has never lost that discipline and he has never stopped training since. He’s been
doing it every day of his life since he was six and that’s why he looks so well and is still so ath-
letic. It reduces the ageing process because the body gets so accustomed to it.”
Chung describes Chan as a leg- endary figure in Asia. “We had Bruce Lee and now we have Jackie Chan and there are no replacements in sight because kids don’t get the training he had anymore,” says Chung.
“He really appreciates it when people work so hard with him. That’s why he is so happy with the Irish crew on this film. He says they are one of the two best crews he has ever worked with. He was too diplomatic to say which was the other best crew.” ■ MICHAEL DWYER
Highbinders was originated on Fujicolor Motion Picture Negative