I met Jackie Chan when I was working as a bouncer at a disco club called Ho Tung.
It was about 1985.
A lot of men from the Jackie Chan Stunt Team
came to have drinks there. They introduced me to him.
At that time, I was boxing, and people like Lam Kwok Ban,
Fung An An, they said they'd introduce me to Jackie,
who also often came to Ho Tung to drink and have fun.
They said to Jackie, "This is Ken Lo, he does boxing."
Jackie said, "Boxing is good. When would you like to work on movies?"
We talked about this and the stunt team said to Jackie:
"Why don't you sign Ken Lo?" They said it jokingly.
I can still remember clearly
that at the time I was working on the movie Miracles.
Jackie said, "Come and follow me." I thought Jackie was just joking.
After one or two weeks, he asked me, "Hey, when are you starting work?"
I asked the stunt team, "Is Jackie for real?"
"It's for real," they said.
"Tell me when you come out and join us, I will pay you double the salary."
Time goes by and I have now been working under Jackie for 20 years.
From the end of 1986 to this day, it has been nearly 20 years.
Actually, I first signed on with Jackie's company
as his bodyguard.
After a while, he suggested that I sign on as an actor as well,
and sign Willie Chan as my manager. I said, "That would be great
if you would give me that opportunity." He said, "Fine, do both jobs."
After that, when a stunt-double job was suitable for me,
I was told to work as a stunt-double as well.
I was working in many capacities.
I was an actor, a double, a stuntman,
and I helped a bit with the choreography work.
I was very happy. It was like a big family.
Later Jackie said to me:
"You're no longer my bodyguard, you are part of my company.
Wherever I go, you be there with me."
We turned into one big family. Wherever he goes, I go with him.
And we do everything with him.
I ran with Jackie and trained his fitness.
I run with him every day and practice boxing with him.
Jackie works out every day
and I've been with him all this time, to this day.
Jackie Chan represents good values in a movie.
He loves playing a policeman. Whenever he plays a policeman in a movie,
he puts the movie into his Police Story series 1, 2 and 3.
To date, we have come to what should be called Police Story 5.
But we just named it differently.
The most recent one we shot with Daniel Wu,
is what is really Police Story 5.
There could already be a 6 in the pipeline. We don't know what the story would be yet.
Jackie's movie series are always about police, police, police.
It's just a great working relationship.
Jackie Chan works happily with every director.
Jackie Chan always has a big production, it's one big family.
If there is a problem Jackie will voice it out.
He has never had an unhappy experience making a movie.
I have never heard of Jackie working on a movie, feeling frustrated or unhappy.
Of course, when he has a tough shoot on the day of, when he's short on time,
he could be frustrated and unhappy.
He works with every director happily. Benny Chan, very happy.
Stanley Tong, also very happy. He works happily with everyone.
He's never said he dislikes any particular director.
Jackie's relationship with Stanley Tong is unique
because Golden Harvest still existed then.
Stanley Tong was also good friends with Mr. Ho Koon-chung.
Therefore, they were really close.
If the story was right, they would green light the movie for Director Tong.
For a lot of movies, Director Tong told Jackie Chan the stories
and Jackie loved them and then agreed to make them.
So for every script, he would talk to Jackie Chan and say:
"I want to make this movie."
As far as I know, they are discussing another big story right now.
Jackie is not any more close
to Stanley Tong than he is with other directors, it's not like that.
He likes every director he works with.
Outside of making movies,
Jackie is good friends with every one of them,
including Derek Yee, Benny Chan. They always have dinner gatherings.
There was never a situation like:
"We've done a movie together and I don't like you." Never.
Gordon Chan comes to dinners as well.
Jackie treats every one as his family.
In the mid-80s,
he was a stunt double himself.
He was once a stunt double for D & B Films and Michelle Yeoh.
He was also a stunt coordinator as well as a screen writer.
He's now a director.
He's involved in the action sequences of the movies he directs.
This is chief of security, Yeh.
Oh, how do you do?
- She can teach you a great deal. - I can see that.
I heard that Stanley invited Michelle to join this movie
and she gladly accepted the invitation.
That was the rumour that we heard when we were making the film.
So the rumour is true.
Michelle is a great dancer and she's very fit.
So she did most of the stunts on her own in this film. The rumour is true.
She promised Stanley that she would act in Policy Story 3.
During the shooting of Police Story 3, Michelle was always very happy.
She was very nice.
When we finished shooting for the day, she would have dinner with us guys,
or practice boxing and martial arts training together.
We taught her how to drive a motorcycle.
She drove the motorcycle on her own in most of the scenes.
She used a stunt double on the last scene where the motorcycle hits the train.
You did see the NG scene, right? The train was moving.
It was in Singapore. The stunt double broke his leg in that scene.
We were all very upset over the injury.
When I picked up the stunt guy,
his leg was broken so badly that it was flopping up and down.
Whether or not she's innocent is immaterial.
Whatever happens, you have to get the bank code from her.
And I don't care how you get it.
Now that you mentioned Tsang Kong,
he is truly an amazing actor.
After he reads the script he can throw it away
and just come onto the set and act.
I have learned a lot from him.
Like, how to say the line, and where to pause.
And the proper place to pause when you are on camera.
This is very important.
We used to just say the line and that's it.
After he finishes a line though, he'd still be looking at you.
He'd wait until you finished your line, then move on. We didn't do that.
After we finished a line, we'd leave the scene right away.
This is kind of tricky.
Sometimes after finishing a scene, he'd give me advice on acting.
He'd whisper in my ear and tell me how to do it.
And we'd be like, "That's right."
We didn't think much about the details. He was really great.
- Boss, are you all right? - Yes. Kill him! Kill him!
When Tsang Kong was on top of the train,
we would slow down, and that's for the dramatic sequences.
If we were shooting action sequences, we would speed it up.
For those scenes where we needed the train to go faster
and he needed to stand up and act,
he was secured with two wires around his waist.
So it was not dangerous at all.
We took all the proper safety measures.
His back was attached with a wire and stuff.
Even if he stood up, he only had to move a little bit,
we would go and grab him.
We did everything we could.
Everything you see in Police Story 3 is real.
The train was moving and the helicopter was real too.
After the helicopter fell down,
we then placed the real helicopter on top of the train.
It was extremely dangerous to fight on top of the train.
If you watch the NG scenes, a lot of people almost fell off.
It was very dangerous. We were on top of the train.
If there were grounds which wouldn't be seen in the scene,
we would put boards down for safety.
There is one scene where Jackie did a somersault,
he nearly fall off the train. It was so dangerous.
I managed to hold on to him. Then everyone came over to grab him.
The train was moving and the driver wouldn't know if you said cut.
You needed to use the microphone,
but the train still wouldn't be able to stop right away.
The train needs time before it can fully stop. It was really dangerous.
There is another scene where Jackie hit the helicopter, it's real as well.
He vomited after the hit.
There was a scene where we took Tsang Kong down with the helicopter.
The helicopter got entangled with the train and couldn't go back up.
We were so scared and afraid that the helicopter might crash into the train.
That scene was extremely dangerous.
Kill him! Kill him!
Yeah, the Malaysian government was very supportive.
They would send police, blocked the roads, etcetera.
But then, when they wanted to see us shooting, we couldn't ask them to leave.
You know what I mean? The traffic was really bad.
There were a lot of things going on,
but the Malaysian government was very helpful.
We could ask for any buildings, hotels to shoot at.
We were staying in a brand new hotel.
We told them we needed an explosion, a building,
and a helicopter to hit the roof of a church.
They let us do it as long as we didn't cause any major damage.
In one scene where Jackie hangs on to the helicopter and hits a billboard,
that was real. It was very dangerous as he had no where to go.
We couldn't shoot such scenes in Hong Kong
because there are way too many high-rises.
It's too dangerous.
Doing a parachute-jump scene needs to be somewhere near the ocean
or one single building. We can't jump in Central, Hong Kong
because you might get tangled with something on your way down.
Thus, we can't film helicopter scenes in Hong Kong.
When Jackie and I fought on top of the train,
the train was moving at a high speed.
It was about... I'd say pretty fast from what I felt standing on top of it.
We had arranged the action sequences thoroughly beforehand,
but we only fought about 6 to 8 sequences.
We waited until the train wasn't moving violently
and then we'd start fighting again.
We had calculated and arranged all the action sequences beforehand.
In addition,
we had secured ourselves with one wire for a more dangerous scene.
Even if we happened to fall, we wouldn't hit solid ground.
We'd be hanging in the air instead.
There were a lot of NGs
because it was hard to stand firmly while the train was moving.
A couple of us did fall off
but luckily no one had any major injuries.
The film was too long. We had to cut it down.
We had shot a lot of footage in the train sequence.
We cut out some afterwards
as we wanted to put some funny scenes in it,
like the scene where I got hit by a wooden sign.
Since the film was too long,
we had to edit stuff out to give more time to the big scene.
In fact, we didn't cut an awful lot.
The fight scene on top of the train is rather short
because it was so dangerous.
We couldn't even stand still.
We could only shoot about 6 to 8 sequences.
We could not do a whole lot. It was just too dangerous.
It was dangerous enough to be fighting on top of the train,
it'd be worse if we fell off.
Thus, the director and stunt coordinator would say:
"Let's just do the most beautiful fight sequences,
and go from there."
In Police Story 3, I shot one scene where I get hit in the head by a wooden sign.
We did two takes and it was very dangerous.
I was very scared and worried that the sign wouldn't break.
And I also worried that I would be knocked out.
In the first take I didn't do it very well. The director wanted me to do it again.
On the second take, I forced myself to act like it was a surprise for me.
Fortunately, the sign wasn't very hard and it did hit me in the head.
It was like... We had put stuff on the ground for safety.
We tried to get the feeling that the sign hits me hard.
We only did two takes as it was too dangerous to do anymore.
For me, it was a simple stunt.
It would be scarier for me if I had to jump from a second floor building.
If I need to be hit by someone, it's a piece of cake.
I knew that I'd be safe doing that stunt.
I knew it wasn't dangerous.
It wouldn't be dangerous unless the wooden sign was too hard.
We, the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, have about 10 people.
You know, about 10 to 20 people.
The Jackie Chan Stunt Team is a good group of people.
Yes, some of the people in the group don't get along with each other
but it happens in a family too.
They don't fight with each other.
They just can't get along.
There were some quarrels but nothing serious ever happened.
For 10 years, to this day,
we still go out drinking and having dinner together.
We never get to the point that we need to fight to solve an issue.
The stunt union in the States is a problem.
They have a lot of restrictions.
They would need to check, make sure you're safe when getting hit by a sign.
They really protect the actors,
unlike Hong Kong. After attaching a wire
you'd be asked to jump from the second floor.
You can't do that in the States.
Jackie was in a simple scene where his legs were holding on to the windows.
They requested us to use two 2 meter wires.
We'd have just held his feet, but they said no.
There are pros and cons.
This would be a waste of time if we were in a hurry. If not, it's okay.
It's good for the actors as they will be safe.
Police Story 3...
You mean the scene with Michelle Yeoh?
The helicopter scene was very dangerous.
We were fighting on top of the train.
I fell off the train.
I was hurt but no one knows.
That scene brings back a lot of memories.
I fell off the train and hit some pointy stones on the ground.
However, we were very happy when we finished the scene.
When we were shooting, there were a lot of helicopters.
And we all needed to help out.
When we blew up the helicopter, we were standing on the side
afraid that something would go wrong.
I got hurt when I was fighting on the train. I fell down and hit some metal.
I was bleeding but nobody knew. I won't tell anyone.
I'd check on myself when I went back to the hotel.
I would just shed some tears while taking a shower.
It was not a big deal but you'd think, like, "I could have my arm broken."
The skin here was torn off. And here too.
Since the train was made by metal, and the place was not round but square.
Once you fell down it was painful.
You couldn't cry in the middle of the shot.
You'd have to pretend you were a tough guy.
So I would just shed some tears while taking a shower.
It's okay for me.