In 1983, several years after making his Hollywood debut in Battle Creek Brawl (aka The Big Brawl), Jackie Chan was obligated (via his contract with Golden Harvest) to make another Hollywood action movie called The Protector, directed by James Glickenhaus. Chan was dissatisfied with the film and what he saw as Glickenhaus’s poor action choreography. He ended up returning to Hong Kong and doing major reshoots of the film back in Hong Kong, including his final fight with Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Chan’s Hong Kong release of The Protector ended up being very different from the version released in America directed by Glickenhaus (and somewhat more successful at the box office). The end fight with Wallace is one of the more significant differences between the two films, although Chan also removed a lot of gratuitous nudity and profanity from the film and added a subplot of his own.
What differences do you notice between the two fights? Not just about the choreography, but the way they’re filmed? What do you attribute the differences to?
Anyway, please click the two video links below for the movie references!
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDFHouhmeY
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj5tTK1-UgY