The Protector (1985)
chinese title: Mighty Dragon Fierce Detective
cast: Jackie Chan, Danny Aiello, Bill "Superfoot" Wallace, Roy Chiao, and Moon Lee
(Sally Yeh co-stars in an uncredited role in extra scenes shot for the Hong Kong print)
director(s): James Glickenhaus (American print) and Jackie Chan (directed reshot footage and re-edited material for the Hong Kong print)

Jackie Chan's second attempt at Hollywood is more than a slight improvement from his disastrous first Hollywood attempt "The Big Brawl" and may not even be quite as bad as you've heard...but it's still forgettable, if not somehow excusable for a mid-'80s cop actioneer.

This time around instead of trying to make Jackie Chan into Bruce Lee (which is exactly what he spent seven years in Hong Kong trying to escape in the '70s): American filmmakers decided to mold him into a mild kung fu Clint Eastwood of sort. Machine gun in hand and vulgarities ready in mouth, Chan stars as a NYC cop with a new partner (Aiello) who go after Hong Kong drug dealers after Chan's partner is waxed.

Jackie Chan's English was so poor at the time of shooting that he had to have a language coach under him while filming to tap his leg indicating when to blurt out his memorized line. The only likeable thing to come from "The Protector" is that it served as inspiration for Chan's now famed "Police Story" series.

Despite this being an upgrade from Chan's only other shot at American cinema, Chan felt the need to over rule Glickenhaus' lazy direction before the film turned into another "Big Brawl." Nevertheless, Glickenhaus's contract was airtight and he couldn't be fired. *When on-location shooting for the Hong Kong scenes ended, Chan secretly hired back most of the actors and re-shot the finale. Chan then took the film and edited out all of the vulgar language, nudity, and even added an extra character (singer/actress Sally Yeh) and an extra fight scene to make up for the damages. He then sent this version to Hong Kong.

Despite Chan's redirection and editing of the film it moved few hearts and minds at the HK box office and in America Glickenhaus' version (which was the original cut of the film) was an even bigger embarrassment and Hong Kong icon Jackie Chan was left still being nobody to North American audiences.

You can see why Chan turned down American scripts until 1998.

* As of 2000 some on-line distributors still carry Jackie Chan's version of "The Protector" which was dubbed in Cantonese for Hong Kong audiences. The American version plays a couple times a year on cable.