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A.
Magazine: About Rapid Fire: it seems like there's a lot going on in there
that invites people to reflect on you and your history. For example, the
theme about coming to terms with an absent father.
Brandon Lee: I think
it's a little too pat to make a direct reference like that, and say that
because a certain circumstance is true in an actor's life, then doing a film
with a similar theme is an attempt on that actor's part to express something
about it. It wasn't my idea for that to be the plot of the film, it was the
writer and director's. Admittedly, it was one I didn't shy away from. It is
interesting when you get offered a script and something that's going on in
it clearly echoes something going on in you as well.
A.:
But that question about following in your father's footsteps is a recurrent
one.
BL: That's a question I can't really answer legitimately. You can't put a
burden like that on yourself: it's a burden that only exists in other
people's expectations of you. And you can't make choices in your career or
your life based on other people's expectations. You have to make choices
based on what your heart tells you to do. The character in this movie - Jake
- is trying to come to some kind of peace with his father. That's something
every young man needs to do in the process of growing from boy into man, and
if you don't have your father around to give you that affirmation, then you
just have to find that affirmation inside yourself, whether it's through
visiting his grave or talking to his friends, or whatever.
A.:
And you've done things like that?
BL: Well, it's an ongoing process, but when I think about following in my
father's footsteps, I feel I've come to a certain amount of peace with
trying to live up to something, and now all I try to do is my own work.
Because that's all you can ask anybody to do. You can't ask somebody to try
and copy somebody else.
A.: So are you happy with the martial arts direction? I remember years
ago you saying that this is a vocabulary that you are used to, good at, and
so on, but it's just a side of you.
A.:
Seems to me your character in Rapid Fire is pretty complex. Comparing it to
Showdown, for example, in which you play a kind of assimilated "regular
American guy" - in this film you're more of a mix.
BL: You know, the part in Showdown was so two-dimensional, and I'm sure some
of that was my fault, but it just didn't compare to this. This was a much
more involved work for me, and I found it a lot more rewarding. In Showdown
I was the comic relief, basically. I had a good time with it, some of the
scenes were really fun. I still really enjoy that scene where all the yakuza
guys pull their guns on us, and my character gets to take his badge out and
do that little monologue - I liked that, but I mean the guy's whole
backstory in the film is summed up in one sentence: "Hey, you know, I'm from
the Valley and my dad's a dentist." That's it. That's all you ever know
about him. There was a lot more meat on Jake's bones.
A.: With Showdown, there was talk about it being a Japan-bashing film.
That may be a bit ... nutty, but the Asian American community's reaction to
it is interesting anyway. How do you relate to that?
BL: Well, to put it in a nutshell - see, I grew up in Hong Kong, so my very
deeply ingrained memories and values - certainly filtered through having
grown up in America for the majority of my life - the ones that got set in
real deep, came from Chinese culture.
A.: You were there as a child.
BL: Yeah, I was there till I was nine, and I spoke Cantonese fluently, all my
friends were Chinese. I went to Lasalle Academy, which is a Catholic school
on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong. But most of my experience with what it's
like to be Asian in America comes through some strong feelings I have about
my dad, strangely enough. The thing is, I don't look particularly Asian, and
so I haven't been privy to being treated as particularly Asian, except on
some very rare occasions. I'm sure you've had different experiences. Because
if I walk into a room, unless someone knows who I am, it's very rare that
someone will come up and say, "Do you have some Chinese blood in you?." The
thing about my dad was, so it's the early to mid '60s, and he's doing The
Green Hornet, and he ended up having to go to Hong Kong to get the bulk of
his work, because at that point a major American studio or TV station wasn't
about to put an Asian man in the leading role in a Hollywood production.
That was almost 30 years ago. The thing is, right now in 1992 there is not a
single bankable Asian star in Hollywood. Not one. So that's where I get most
of my feelings about the matter, to tell you the truth.
A.:
Also, I think that when he came back as a star, it was really as a foreign
star, curiously enough.
BL: And the other fucked thing about it, you'll excuse my saying so, is that
it was also almost entirely posthumous for the American public. By the time
they figured it out, he was gone.
A.:
I was also thinking as I watched the film that your character plays out the
complexity of his mixed identity by passing in different communities. By
speaking Chinese, by going into the laundry, it's possible for you to pass
as this immigrant worker, while at other times you fly through non-Asian
society and aren't marked - except for moments, for instance, in the hotel
when these mock FBI guys say something like, "Oh, we could order out
Chinese." That's a really interesting moment.
BL: Well, it's funny. Growing up, because a lot of people wouldn't consider
me Chinese, there have been several times - the majority of what I've
experienced as any kind of Asian prejudice - when people have felt
comfortable making rude remarks in my presence, like I wouldn't mind because
I don't look Asian or something, you know what I mean? And there have been
many times when I've had to look at somebody and go, "Excuse me?" Then they
get kind of abashed, like "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean that." They
probably wouldn't do that in front of you.
A.:
Well, you'd be surprised.
BL: Yeah, I probably would.
A.: What do you think about the marketing - the sex symbol, action hero
of the '90s thing?
A.:
And yet it has a life of it's own. There's this whole other life that these
images take on. I think that happened in the marketing of Rapid Fire.
BL: I just want people to come see the film. I'm not concerned about what
people will think afterwards. I think that the marketing of this film - and
I've told anybody who was involved in it that would listen - trivializes it
to an extent, and they have told me, "well, the reason we're doing this is
because it's supposed to appeal to this one particular crowd." I just hate
all that shit. It just seems so manipulative to me. But then a movie that I
enjoyed very much, Prelude to a Kiss, comes out and just does zip at the box
office, and you hear people say it's because it was not readily
understandable by the shopping mall audience. If I were to see the marketing
and know nothing about Rapid Fire I would dismiss it: I'd say oh please! The
thing is, these films, the ones that work - like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon -
you care about the characters, and there were stakes because of that. You
care whether they lived or died. If you don't have that, then it becomes
just about who can make a bigger explosion in the next reel, who can break
more glass in the next scene.
A.:
Speaking of blood and guts, I know that you worked in Hong Kong. I was
wondering what you think of the whole new wave of Hong Kong action films,
like John Woo's films.
A.:
I'm really impressed by how much emotion they squeeze into those things. I
mean, Jackie Chan, for instance, goes through a whole range of different
rhythms: totally comedic action, serious action, sad action.
BL: They keep the same beats through an action scene that a dramatic scene
would have, and they express character through a sequence instead of having
it just become about blowing stuff up. And they do it inventively, and
sometimes breathtakingly. Doing the choreography for Rapid Fire, I really
wanted to bring the flavor of that to American film, to an American
audience.
A.: What about your Hong Kong film - Legacy of Rage? How did you find
that experience?
BL: At the time, it just about drove me insane, because things are so
chaotic over there. I was working with a relatively new film company, DMB
Films, and not only was there not a shooting schedule most days, there
wasn't even a script. You know, you'd show up on the set, and it was just
improvised from take to take. In some ways it was a really good experience,
because it was like getting thrown in the deep end and having somebody say
swim, but I was there for six months. When I got off the plane I literally
kissed the ground all the way to the car.
A.:
Do you have an audience out there? Did it do well?
BL: Yeah, it did. I think it was the second highest grossing movie of that
year for Asia.
A.:
Would you go back to work there?
BL: With a Chinese production? I don't know. It would depend who it was.
There are people over there I would like to work with, I was thinking it
would be nice for them to come over here. But if they invited me to come
over I'd seriously think about it.
A.:
Well, it'll be interesting to see what happens there, in '97 and all.
BL: I'm going to be there. I have a hotel suite booked. I'm serious - it's
four years in advance, and they usually don't do it, but I have a good
friend over there, so we have two different hotel suites booked: one at the
Peninsula Hotel, and one at this new hotel that they haven't even finished
building yet. But when it's finished, we've got hotel suites for that week
in June or July when the regime switches over. It's gonna be amazing. You
have to be there, you know, you have to be there! It's going to be a quarter
revolution, a quarter riot, a quarter eulogy, and a quarter party. There'll
be expatriates drinking and wailing in the streets.
A.:
What do you plan to do? What are your next projects like?
BL: The next project's called The Crow. It's actually based on a graphic
novella, you know, like The Dark Knight Returns, but this one's a little bit
more underground than that Frank Miller Batman piece. It's by a guy named
James O'Barr, and I'm playing a rock musician who is murdered and returns
from the dead.
A.:
Will it have action?
BL: It does. I'm doing the choreography again. I haven't really decided how
I'm going to approach it yet, because to me you have to fit the action very
much to the tone of the piece. Rapid Fire is a theatrical action movie. The
fight scenes in it are not what I would say, "Hey, this is what a real fight
looks like." You know, the techniques are still valid, but you're walking a
line between reality and theatricality. That's why I think Hong Kong action
movies don't play in this country - one of the reasons - because they go too
far in the direction of theatricality. And they under crank all the action,
which makes it come off looking a bit frenetic and cartoonish.
A.:
Yeah, but the audience has a real vocabulary for that ...
BL: But it's that audience. Doing it for an American film, I was very
conscious of exactly that. There were things we wanted to do, but we just
shook our heads and grinned and said "Ah, we can't do that." Actually, Jeff
and I talk about it a lot. It'll be great: we'll do this one, and then we'll
do one more, and then on the third one we'll really be able to let go
because we'll have built a...vocabulary, like you said. The Crow is a very
dark piece, it's got supernatural overtones, obviously, the guy comes back
from the dead. And he's a little bit more, and a little bit less than human
- he's something different than human. And so the action's going to be a
little bit wilder than in Rapid Fire. I mean, it won't be a straight action
film.
A.:
Well, there are a lot of elements in Rapid Fire that play against the
straight action film, like the way the character's introduced with a
flashback to Tiananmen.
BL: I'm telling you, for that scene, they rebuilt the Goddess of Democracy,
they had six Soviet tanks, and three or four hundred screaming, running,
bleeding Chinese student extras with automatic weapon fire going off. And so
much thought had gone into it on my part, but when we actually shot it I
found that I didn't have to do a goddamn thing except stand there and look
at it. I enjoyed that whole part.
A.:
And there's that little Cantonese insult scene, where you're making fun of
Ryan, your white boss, and he doesn't understand what's going on.
BL: It's funny, because for that sequence the director just said, say
something insulting to him, it doesn't matter what. So I said something
pretty insulting, and they didn't subtitle it, and they never asked me what
it meant. Anybody who speaks Cantonese in the audience ... I don't know, it
might be pushing the MPAA rating, you know? (Laughter)
A.:
I'm not sure any of the ratings people will know what's going on. But there
again it seems to me that your presence in this film generates other
interesting effects. It's as if you had an action film and the lead was
black - you're going to see other blacks in the film, you've got to have
some reflection on that theme ...
BL: Well, okay, just as an example: in the last decade, the African American
film scene has really jumped. You have African American directors, writer,
actors, and that's something you really can't say about the Asian American
film scene. And the thing is, a lot of black actors now are saying, you
know, that even though I'm black, I can still play an Everyman character
that's not specifically related to me as a black man. When those films were
first coming up, a lot of them were about people telling stories of their
neighborhoods, their people, how and where they grew up. There's a wealth of
stories like that from the Asian American community that hasn't been tapped
into yet.
A.:
And that's a preliminary stage, it seems to me, too. Having that presence
out there, to the point where you don't feel ghettoized by having to tell
just those stories.
A.:
So do you see that as part of your project? Is that something you're
conscious of in your career?
BL: If anything, the only thing that I have a little bit of a chip on my
shoulder is about just that: wanting to advance. Maybe in 10 years there'll
be more Asians in film. That's something my father started to bring about
and didn't have time to finish, and something that I think I'll have a
chance to work on a little bit more.
A.:
It's a pretty heavy burden to place on your shoulders. Not only do you have
to act, but you represent people in a way.
BL: Oh, but the thing is: you only have the burdens on you that you choose
to put there.
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