A Near Empty Bottle of Lightning

Little Big Soldier is an interesting movie.

This Jackie Chan vehicle marks a departure for it’s star. The crazed stunt work and rhythmic fights scenes that are Chan’s typical signature, while not altogether gone, are a mere echo in this film. Chan exhibits his affable Everyman persona here and while Chan can play this kind of role in his sleep, he has never relied on it to carry a movie.

In fact, he plays a character who actively avoids fighting, running away from conflict or playing dead and nearly every opportunity. Chan has long been plagued by lingering injuries from botched stunts and has stated in interviews that he would like to make the transition to serious actor. Typecasting is a bitch, though. Jackie Chan built his career on action movies and became an international sensation because of them. Language varies, but a kick to the head is universal and falling off of buildings needs no translation. Being the world’s best action star has meant that Chan’s fans are loathe to give up their hero to straight dramas and comedies.

It hasn’t helped that he is obviously slowing down. Chan has passed the half-century mark, long after most athletes have retired. A number of avowed fans want to see Jackie Chan return to the mercurial hard-hitting movies of his heyday rather than the slower American movies dominating his later career. As with favorite bands, they say, the old stuff was better. Chan’s more modern outings may have bigger budgets, better sets, and slicker production values, but they leave a lot of his hardcore fans cold. Just mention The Tuxedo and watch the outrage fly.

I can’t criticize Chan for wanting to shift gears late in his career. I can’t bemoan him for his mortality, that the slowness of age and the desire to live a long life are catching up with him. He has given so much of himself. Not to mention, I owe him for his dedication.

Jackie Chan saved my life.

This, of course, is a lie, but there was a time when his movies felt like a life line.

The time in question was 1994. I was living in Iowa City, IA, having moved there from California to follow my girlfriend only to find out her future plans didn’t include me after all. I was working baker’s hours starting at four in the morning. I was tired to the point of hearing voices that weren’t there and utterly miserable.

This was the year that Kurt Cobain blew his brains out. While not a devout Nirvana fan, I felt my despair resonating with Cobain’s. I wasn’t suicidal, but I was foolhardy. I remember standing outside in a raging spring thunderstorm that the Midwest serves up so well, blinking hard amidst the buckets of water and lightning, daring Thor’s Shotgun to strike me down. A bit dramatic, yes. I was hurt, angry, sad, and exhausted.

I needed to get my mind off of this miserable track. The public library had a huge selection of movies, but my aged VCR was broken. I checked the Yellow Pages for a place to fix it. I called around a few places and finally settled on the closest one from where I lived (at the time, I did not have a driver’s license and was walking everywhere the bus didn’t stop).

The place was improbably called Tofu Hut. It was a video rental store that specialized in indie films, anime, concert bootlegs, cult movies, and foreign films. My VCR was resuscitated by some screws and an elastic band and I was convinced to get a membership while I was at it. So I perused the shelves of videotapes, many with primitive inkjet-printed covers and handwritten descriptive index cards. I settled in a section labelled “Hong Kong Cinema”. One card in particular caught my eye. I don’t remember what it said, but I’ll paraphrase; “Not only does he write, direct, and star in his own movies, but Jackie Chan performs some of the most crazy, death-defying stunts ever committed to cinema. This guy is CRAZY!”

Clearly, I was missing out on something.

The movie in question was Police Story. I picked it thinking I was going to get a dumb, moderately entertaining action movie to keep my mind off of my troubles for the next few hours.

You couldn’t slap the smile off of my face afterwards.

I could feel my heart still racing when I popped the tape out. Did I really see what I just saw? Hanging by an umbrella-handle from a speeding bus? Falling three stories through electrical wiring and glass displays? Fight scenes like a Miles Davis routine?

I had to get more of this.

I went back to the Tofu Hut and found Armour of God, Project A, and Wheels on Meals. I found other filmmakers from Hong Kong, directors like John Woo and Tsui Hark. I found what would become one of my favorite movies of all time; A Chinese Ghost Story.

It really sounds like so little; a clutch of movies from a foreign country keeping the personal demons at bay. I still maintain that Jackie Chan was exactly what I needed during that wet spring thaw in Iowa and why I will always be a fan of his, even when he makes movies like The Tuxedo. By all means, let him become a character actor in the third stage of his career; I’ll still be watching.

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