SuperChan's Jackie Chan Blog: July 2014

The media were invited onto the set of Dragon Blade yesterday. The impression they came away with was first the distance needed to travel each day from Dunhuang to the set - it is a one way trip of about 2 hours making 4 hours travel time there and back each day. Jackie said that a normal working day is between 14 and 16 hours long. There are close on 1000 cast and crew on set every day, many of whom live on set. 2 tons of water are brought to the set every day for drinking, meals and the horses.

In the photos Jackie is wearing a long veil/scarf over his hat, this is because most days the wind comes up in the afternoon and blows sand fiercely around set. Jackie has decided that it takes too long to run for shelter and just covers up with the scarf for protection from the wind and sand. The heat is also so fierce that sadly some horses have died from the heat, although every care has been taken for their well-being. The horses are rested often and given water several times a day. In addition when it came to filming battle scenes Jackie has refused to allow the horses to fall and insisted on using dummy horses to film action scenes involving the horses. When some one said something to him about it not hurting the horses, he said 'How do you know, you aren't a horse."

Jackie said that this movie is a turning point in his career and when asked to elaborate on it said, that he has had many turning points in his life - from child star to stunt man, from stunt man to stunt co-ordinator and from stunt co-ordinator to actor. He said that he has been trying to make different kinds of movies for many years, but the audience does not accept him in non-action roles. Jackie said that with Karate Kid he proved that he could play an older character, and he proved with CZ12 that he can play a younger character and now he is going to prove that he can play a General.

Jackie added that this movie has been seven years in development, and has a very good script, very good actors, very good action and the audience will surely be very affected by it. Jackie also said that he expects a record box-office for the movie.

Jackie then spoke about the action scenes in the movie and said that they are just as difficult as the scenes in CZ12 but in a different way. Here there are a lot of logistical difficulties with co-ordinating large groups of people in battle scenes, although Jackie still has a number of fight scenes himself.

Adrian Brody apparently contacted Jackie himself and asked to work with him, and Jackie invited him to join Dragon Blade.