Steve Pratt talks to the ever-youthful Jackie Chan about movies, big breaks and kung fu.

FOR some time, Jackie Chan has been trying to prove his worth as an actor as well as a martial arts star. The Karate Kid might just be the movie that proves his breakthrough.

Not only does he get to demonstrate his kung fu and karate skills – while teaching the bullied young hero to stand up for himself – but he also has more dramatic, emotional scenes as maintenance man Mr Han’s story unfolds.

“I’ve been asking myself how long I can keep doing action and stunts,” says Chan, who’s 56. “I see so many action stars who are gone after a few years. The action star’s life is very short.

“Back in Asia I can do whatever I want to do. I’m the producer, I’m the director, I can do so many things. But in Hollywood anytime I present a script they say, ‘No, no, no, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4’.

“I say I’m not young any more, I want to do some serious things. I say there’s no way I can do this – and then I say, ‘okay, forget it’.

“A few years ago I was in Japan and someone said, ‘you know what? Will Smith is outside’. I opened the door and I saw him and we hugged each other and I said welcome. And before we parted, he said, ‘let’s do a movie together’.

“I said, yeah, yeah, yeah’. In Hollywood everybody does that – Stallone, the Mayor Schwarzenegger – everybody does that, let’s do a movie together. Then finally he called and said, ‘let’s do The Karate Kid’. I thought I was the kid and asked who the master was. They said I was. I forget how old I am.”

They trusted that he could handle both acting and action.

“I really appreciated it. Now it proves I can act, I want to be the Asian Robert De Niro,”

adds Chan.

He hopes that the film helps people understand more about Chinese kung fu. His philosophy with kung fu is to respect people.

“When I was young, I trained a lot. I trained my mind, my eyes, my thinking, how to help people. And it trained me how to deal with pressure,” says Chan.

‘WHEN I was a young stunt guy, the director would say I was useless. But I wanted to be the best, I wanted to be a super stunt guy. That’s how I built myself, because of martial arts and everything. When I look at young kids today, I just don’t believe it – parents take away the Gameboy and they’re suicidal.

“They cannot take the pressure. Every young child can learn through any martial art. Then they learn to respect their life, their parents, their country, the whole world.”

The experience of young Dre in the film, of leaving home to live in a foreign country, was reminiscent of Chan’s early days when he went to make movies in the US. Like Dre can’t speak Chinese, Chan’s grasp of English was poor.

“Every day I had nothing to do except training in English, to keep talking. When I did the film, people taught me how to fight. They said I was too fast.

They told me to slow down.

That was really frustrating. I thought I should forget Hollywood and go back to Hong Kong. I’m so lucky that Hollywood finally accepts my comedy fighting.”

He’s also more aware of the responsibility of being a movie star. “Right now, the box office is not important. I want to do something meaningful, like The Karate Kid,” he says.

“In Drunken Master, I taught people how to drink, how to fight. Later on, when I grew up I realised that was wrong, so I made Drunken Master 2. I wanted to correct myself and tell people not to drink, not to fight.

“Slowly I corrected my old things. I do bad things, but I’m learning from all those years.

Now with The Karate Kid, I don’t know how much the box office is, but people call me and send me the newspaper reviews. They say, ‘Jackie is good’. You cannot buy that. So that’s what I’m going to do in the future, do something meaningful because it’s not about money.”

■ The Karate Kid (PG) is now showing in cinemas.