THE ARTS/CINEMA	JANUARY 26, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 3
	Stealing Stars Hollywood used to ignore Asian talent. Now it's brazenly filching the leading actors and directors, especially from Hong Kong By RICHARD CORLISS ach January, as the New Year's celebration approaches, Hong Kong movie fans sizzle with anticipation at the handful of holiday films their stars have prepared for them. This year seems particularly robust. Not only is Jackie Chan offering his annual comedy thriller, but the long-absent Chow Yun-fat and action heroine Michelle Yeoh have new extravaganzas to provide thrills, stunts, guns and glamour--all the pleasures of Hong Kong cinema. No need to cheer, local chauvinists. Only Jackie's Who Am I? was shot in Cantonese for a primarily Asian audience. Chow's The Replacement Killers is pure Hollywood: an American director, co-star and studio, Columbia Pictures. He has no plans to make another Hong Kong film. As for Yeoh, she is the new Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies. But a new kind of Bond girl, dishing out banter, high kicks and heavy artillery--a full partner in saving the world. After only 24 days on North American screens, Tomorrow earned $103 million, making it the top-grossing Bond film ever. And Yeoh, whose physical and comedic grace won the awe of teenage boys across the continent, is assured of a Hollywood career. Already Mitch Markowitz, who wrote the Robin Williams hit Good Morning, Vietnam, is crafting a screenplay for her that United Artists would produce. She'd play the bodyguard of a comedian on tour. Once there was a brain drain. Now Hollywood is attempting the star steal and the filmmaker filch. Hong Kong actors and directors are prime targets for an industry desperate for new faces and visions. There are some important holdouts. Chan has a six-minute cameo in the long-delayed comedy Burn Hollywood Burn; otherwise he continues to tiptoe through the DMZ between Hong Kong and Hollywood, making internationalized films with real if limited appeal in the U.S. But many other established stars can't wait to sign for that big American picture. This week Jet Li, the stone-faced martial arts star, begins shooting Lethal Weapon 4, a guaranteed hit with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. O.K., he's playing the villain--maybe not so good for the Asian image. But one of his managers, Rowena Li of Fortune Media Group, isn't worried: "He's never played a villain before, so this will be a new look for him. Besides, you can play a bad guy in a very cool way." She already believes her client can't miss in the States. "As we were coming out of the Trump Tower in New York, a taxi driver jammed on his brakes and ran out of his cab yelling, 'Jet Li! I love you!'" If Bruce Lee could become a trans-Pacific star in the '70s, why not Jet Li in the '90s? The road is tougher for more specialized stars. Stephen Chow's comedies have grossed more in Hong Kong than the films of any other star. Now he's looking for a Hollywood project, but his moleitau (no-brain) wordplay may not translate into English. And any actress, no matter how enchanting, who can't do her own stunts had better be prepared to accept fewer roles or smaller films. Bai Ling, a mainland mesmerizer, was the best thing about Richard Gere's Beijing melodrama Red Corner. But will Mitch Markowitz write a script for her? The beguiling Joan Chen (The Last Emperor) has fashioned a nicely eccentric career, battling Sly Stallone in Judge Dredd, making love to Anne Heche in The Wild Side. But to the moguls she's marginal. Maggie Cheung has made recent films in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and French. Could she become the first Asian Meryl Streep? Well, John Woo was a long shot in 1992, when he gave up his crown as the colony's top action director and came to the U.S.; no Asian-based auteur had made it in Hollywood. Now, with Broken Arrow and Face/Off worldwide hits, he is a smash in the West and the East. So America's movie big shots, who know that action films can be their most profitable product, are looking to lure more Hong Kong talent. In Hollywood, Woo is also a verb. Hollywood wants Hong Kong directors for the medium-budget action genre because they have visual verve, work fast and don't cost much; Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark, the last two directors on Van Damme films, were each paid about $500,000--peanuts, Hollywood-style. Other, artier directors are valued for helming prestige product. Chen Kaige, the mainland auteur of Farewell My Concubine and Temptress Moon, is being courted by Warner Bros. to direct a remake of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, possibly to star Gibson. Miramax Films, a flourishing "independent" outfit, hopes Chen will make an English-language film with French star Juliette Binoche, who was Oscar-nominated last year for her role in The English Patient. And the envelope, please...? It's possible that directors have a better long-term chance in Hollywood than actors, because the industry is reluctant to believe that a Chinese face can appeal to the mass Western audience. Chow Yun-fat knows this. "To be honest," he says, "Asians have been locked in the pigeonhole by Hollywood for a long time. They are stereotyped to be the kung-fu stars, gangsters, emperors--pretty stock roles. It is only recently that Asians are allowed to roam freely and assume more major and dynamic parts. I envisage more to come in the next century." Hong Kong's babies are growing up and setting off for top jobs far from home--which, for movies, means Hollywood. Says Jeff Yang, publisher of the Asian-themed U.S. magazine A. and co-author of Jackie Chan's forthcoming autobiography: "New-wave Hong Kong icons like Chow Yun-fat or John Woo or Tsui Hark are now in the position to create Hollywood vehicles with their names above the title. Hardcore fans of their original stuff may feel they've sold out, but the potential to be embraced by mass audiences is great. The screen has truly become internationalized." That's a plus for the world but a loss for the industry back home. With the best talent abroad, who will make the films that can remake Hong Kong's reputation? And who'll be left to star in the New Year's movies of 1999? --Reported by Jeffrey Ressner /Los Angeles
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