News
14 Aug 2002
Highbinders: Both Chans unhappy about US decisions
Yesterday
Hong Kong's The Sun reported Columbia Pictures, the international
distributor of Jackie Chan's newest Hong Kong production HIGHBINDERS (except
Asia and France), has rejected the delivery of the movie because some dialogues
had been changed without their permission.
When being interviewed by Shenzhen's Nanfang Daily, director Gordon Chan
tried to set the record straight. He said, "The American are satisfied by the
cut we have right now and don't want Jackie Chan and I to alter it any further.
To them, the action sequences are good enough, but Jackie and I think the story
is still not strong. Columbia won't give us any more time because they
has reserved a timeslot for it (May, 2003?).
We
have been arguing on this for a while. Jackie and I decided, if we can't
resolved it, we will make two versions the movie as the last resort, because
majority of the audiences is still in Asia." When being asked whether it was
because the Americans could not understand the Chinese style funny dialogues, he
said "not just that, changing dialogues is not the vital point, it is more about
the cultural difference." None of the the screenwriters are Chinese and
possibly, some dialogues from the script have been changed to let Jackie Chan
talk more like a Chinese. Gordon Chan said they has originally planned to
release it in Asia next February (around the coming Chinese New Year), but due
to the delay, now he was only hoping the CG effects could be done by the end of
this year.