Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the two biggest martial art stars in the world, finally make a movie together. “The Forbidden Kingdom”, set to open nationwide on April 18th, is an action-adventure movie taking Boston teenager Jason Tripitikas to ancient China where he learns the art of Kung Fu from mismatched teachers, Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) and the Silent Monk (Jet Li).

GearCrave loves Kung Fu, and especially loves Kung Fu movies– so we sat down to have a chat with Jackie Chan about the Forbidden Kingdom and Jet Li. Continue reading after the jump for more Jackie Chan goodness, and the details on his latest film, “The Forbidden Kingdom”.

You are normally very critical of your movies, are you happy with the way this turned out?

I would never make a movie like this, my instinct is to think this is a ridiculous movie with flying monkey kings and time travel, it is not a Chinese movie, it is a Hollywood movie but I trust the director and I trust the American Audience. John (John Fusco | writer) loves Kung Fu he and is very knowledgeable, so I don’t know if it matters if I am happy, but I know others are.

What was it like wearing that Wig?

Arghh, every morning I would be in makeup at 5 am until 2pm and then we would start shooting, Rob (Director) would say it is a wrap for the day after two scenes! Crazy, I would scream we must keep shooting, I wanted to get as much done as possible, the wig was horrible.

In your movies like “Drunken Master” you used to play the student, now Michael Angarano plays the student and you are the master, how does it feel to have come full circle?

Yes your right, I don’t know how it feels, strange I suppose, it is an odd feeling, the time has passed so quickly, it has been 30 years since that movie (Drunken Master), my master is now dead and I am suddenly the master to the student, but this is the human condition, what else can you say.

Unsurprisingly you got injured in this movie, how did that happen?

Haha, you don’t get injured badly in american movies, insurance, stunt men, regulations, doctors it is impossible. I don’t remember hurting myself in this movie.

You have wanted to work with Jet Li for some time, what was the first movie you wanted to collaborate with him on?

Your right, about 15 years ago I approached Jet with a script I wrote, he was a cop and he had to chase me across the world, from Russia back to Beijing, but there was always something getting in the way of the making the movie, scheduling etc. Then an American studio took the script and paid $1 million dollars to have it re-written, but then I didn’t like the script and so on and so on. There is always middle men between Jet and I, when we would meet in person we would both want to work together, but then there was always people in the way, scheduling issues etc. This movie was only possible because the producer, Casey Silver would phone me every ten days for years, checking up, always acting as a buffer, a co-ordinator between Jet and I to make sure this happened.

Name some of your favorite classic Martial Art movies?

Drunken Master or Rush Hour - hahahah

What was it like working with Jet Li?

Our first fight scene, we were shown the choreography, I asked to see them again, and then Jet and I were both ready to go, normally you rehearse but we are experienced enough to go straight into it. Jet and were so fast in the first take, that Rob (director) asked us to slow down, due to the high definition genesis camera not being able to keep up. Jet and I wanted to impress each other by going faster than the other. It was very comfortable fighting with Jet, he knows exactly what he is doing, very fast, very comfortable. It is easy to hurt each other, but he knows how to hit, when to move.

What is it like to drunken fist style again after all this time.

I don’t know, it feels silly, let the box office decide if they like it, if they do, the next one can be Forbidden Kingdom - Drunken Fist.

Thank you very much.

Thank you

Further Reading:

• Forbidden Kingdom IMDB
• Forbidden Kingdom Trailer
• Jackie Chan: IMDB | Wiki
• Jet Li: IMDB | Wiki