Hong Kong Babylon An Insider’s Guide to the Hollywood of the East

by Fredric Dannen and Barry Long
Hyperion/Miramax Books, New York
Pages 79-82

CHOW YUN-FAT, Actor
Born Hong Kong, 1955

JASMINE CHOW, Spouse, Business Advisor
Born Singapore, 1959

Chow Yun-Fat is one of the best-known movie stars in Asia - and soon, he hopes, in the United States. In February 1997, production began on his first Hollywood movie, Replacement Killers. Though Chow’s English was charmingly maladroit at the time the following interview took place, his English skills have improved dramatically since his move to Los Angeles; Jasmine, his pretty, no-nonsense wife, who moved there with him, jokes that he seems to have “swallowed a thesaurus.”

Question: Did you anticipate the success of A Better Tomorrow?

Chow Yun-Fat: No. Never. I always hope the boss can make money, but what I enjoy is the moment when I’m acting. And up to finish the film, everybody not very optimistic about this film. Even the boss of Golden Princess. But then, going to see the premiere, you can feel the atmosphere in the cinema. The audience is very excited, shouting, clapping hands. This never happen in a Hong Kong movie. I love it.

Jasmine Chow: And the box office every night was good. The money coming in was so great.

Your life changed after that.

CYF: It changed a lot. I make more movie, and I make more money. (Jasmine laughs.) And I also make more injury.

John Woo has almost killed you a couple of times.

JC: He has stitches around his eyes from The Killer, the effects of the gunshots outside the church.

CYF: In A Better Tomorrow II, the grenade goes off in the house, and the heat and fire push me off the camera, and some of my hair burned already.

JC: John is crazy with explosive.

You also wrenched your back carrying Dean Shek in one of the Brooklyn scenes of A Better Tomorrow II.

CYF: That shot, I’m carrying him in the warehouse, quite close to the waterfront, and in the warehouse is a lot of water. So that accident happened because so slippery. I lost my balance, and my back twist, and I cannot move any more.

JC: On the flight all the way from New York City to San Francisco, he has to sleep on the floor and crawl to the toilet. John Woo has injured him a lot. I want to kill John Woo.

Do you plan to work with Woo in Hollywood?

CYF: I love it.

What caused the rift between Woo and Tsui Hark?

CYF: (after a pause): Such a long story.

JC: It happened when The Killer was successful. Tsui Hark didn’t support this project at all, but when this movie got fame everywhere, Tsui Hark knew he needs to get this recognition back. Fighting for that. Tsui wants John to declare he’s the rightful owner of the film. Quite a tedious argument on this. In the end John gave up. John doesn’t like argument. I know John was very sad, he lost a good friend. John is a very melancholy person.

Tsui Hark directed you in A Better Tomorrow III. How was that experience?

CYF: Tsui Hark is a very good director, very creative, very sensitive. For my own way, I think I cannot communicate with Tsui Hark. I cannot feel it. We are going two different directions. Maybe sometime we can make another movie, but not at this moment. After A Better Tomorrow III, he tried to invite me another kind of story. I turned him down.

Tell me about Ringo Lam.

CYF: Ringo Lam, he’s another kind of director, he like the things very real, raw. He would never let the actor feel very soft or comfort in the location.

JC: He’s like a mad dog on the set. I couldn’t believe it, this guy has no sympathy at all. You don’t feel pain, he’s not happy.

CYF: He like the actor, actress, the crew members, to share the sadness of the director (laughs).

©Copyright 1997 Fredric Dannen. All rights reserved.