….
[LIE Studios]
The late afternoon sun had dipped below the horizontal silhouette of the Burbank through the double paned glass of the eighteenth floor executive suite.
Inside, on the sofa near the corner window, Jackie Chan sat with his hands resting lightly on his knees, his posture straight but relaxed.
At thirty-two years old, he seemed fit even in his formal shirt.
Across the desk, Regal Seraphsail poured Dahongpao tea into a ceramic cup, the rich, earthy steam rising slowly into the cool air of the room.
"I have already decided, Regal."
He took a careful sip before continuing in Cantonese.
"When you called me yourself, that was enough for me. I told my manager, 'Don't bring me anything else. Finish whatever I have already promised, then keep my schedule clear.'"
A small smile tugged at his lips.
"I have a few press dates in Taipei during the spring. After that, I am free."
He set the cup down and leaned forward slightly. "You don't need to convince me with contracts first. If you called me directly, then you must have something you really want me to do."
Jackie was practically oozing with excitement.
After Regal called him, he watched all the films Regal had written and directed in the past few weeks.
His debut [Following]; [Death Note]; [The Hangover]; five films in the [Harry Potter] franchise; [Spiderman]; [Ironman]; [Superman]; [I Want To Eat Your Pancreas]; [The Whiplash]; [The Matrix]; [John Wick]; the recent [Batman] film; and even animation series like [Solo Leveling].
He quite literally spent his last month watching every master piece the young director had created. And he was expecting an action oriented script with high octane hand-to-hand combat sequences.
He was excited to perform the stunts in real-time.
However, there is something important he had to say and prepare for Regal, before he read the script.
"But before we open the manuscript–" Jackie continued, his tone turning serious, "....there is one very messy thing we must clear up…. the insurance."
Samantha Cross, standing quietly near the filing cabinets, stopped typing on her tablet.
She shot a brief, knowing glance toward Regal.
"The insurance?" Regal asked, setting the teapot back onto the table.
"Yes." Jackie nodded, a wry smile touching his lips. "My stunt team… the Sing Kar Ban…. and I do not exist in the eyes of the global insurance companies. After what happened on the many film productions back home, Lloyd's of London formally put my name on their blacklist. And Regal, for the past five years, I have had to pay all my medical bills, hospital admission, and every long-term injury compensation for my boys out of my own personal pocket."
"The Hollywood agencies think we are reckless, and suicidal. If we shoot a major action film under the LIE Studios banner, the local union representatives and the legal departments will shut us down on the very first day of rehearsals because of the liability. I needed to know if you were prepared to fight those battles before we agreed to anything verbally."
Jackie concluded, really hopeful this won't push away Regal from hiring him, or his team.
Luckily, for him Regal never cared about such stuff.
Alas, there was something that made him confused too.
"It's good that you shared that, Jackie." Regal said in Cantonese–
"But... I don't see why it matters in this script?"
Jackie blinked, momentarily thrown off by the transition. "In this script? Regal... me and my team might be good in action, but even we get injured. You understand, right? Even a minute error can cause a disaster when performing real time stunts."
"No, I understand that." Regal agreed, offering a faint, reassuring smile. "But the script doesn't contain any action of that kind. No... actually, it does contain action, but it does not contain fights or combats with hands."
"No hand combat?" Jackie was utterly shocked.
His hand remained suspended in the air, his fingers curled into a loose fist that had suddenly lost its target.
Regal, despite having quite a versatile filmography of action, drama, comedy, thriller, romance, he was still expecting an action film under their collaboration.
His first major lead debut under the most powerful director in Hollywood didn't feature any stunts?
Did he make a mistake?
"What is the script about?" Jackie asked curiously.
"Its a… sports action-comedy and… martial arts fantasy." Regal said simply, sliding a heavy, silk-bound manuscript across the dark wood of the desk.
Jackie's eyes drifted to the cover, but before he could reach for it–
Regal continued. "It will be about a soccer sport, but mainly the film revolves around a character called Sing."
He explained, his gaze steady. "He is a passionate Shaolin disciple who is trying to find a way to promote the spiritual and physical benefits of kung fu to a modern, self-absorbed world that has forgotten how to look up.
"He's completely broke, picking through garbage just to survive until he meets Golden Leg Fung, a former soccer star whose career was destroyed decades ago by a corrupt rival."
Jackie listened quietly, his expression remaining unchanged as the words settled in.
Cheesy. Very cheesy.
It sounded like a story he had heard a hundred times before, the poor man meeting a fallen master, old wounds, a corrupt rival and a second chance, almost too familiar.
Then he remembered that Regal had started as a webnovel writer, which suddenly made the straightforward setup make a little more sense, though Jackie still couldn't hide his disappointment.
He had expected something more physical, more chaotic, the kind of action where someone gets thrown through a window, crashes onto a table, grabs a chair, gets hit with another chair and somehow keeps fighting.
But this story seemed to be moving in a completely different direction, almost as if Regal were deliberately avoiding the kind of hand to hand action Jackie specialized in.
Jackie glanced down at the script, his fingers tapping lightly against his knee.
Regal noticed Jackie's hesitation but completely ignored it, continuing his narration with absolute commitment–
"Together, they realize that the speed, balance, and explosive leg power of Shaolin kung fu can be adapted perfectly to modern football, so Sing tracks down his estranged Shaolin brothers, who have all fallen on hard times, one working as a bouncer, another as a dishwasher, and another stuck in a miserable office job as a stockbroker."
Internally, Regal knew exactly why Jackie was taken aback.
Even Regal himself, the initial films he had wanted to make with Jackie were his own beloved classics; [Rumble in the Bronx], [Drunken Master II], or the [Police Story] Trilogy.
He had spent weeks looking at those scripts on his system's bulletin board.
But as he knew Jackie Chan's trajectory as an actor from his previous world, he realized something that had deeply bothered him about how Hollywood had treated the master in his past world.
They had boxed him in.
They saw him as a physical novelty, a charismatic stunt-machine who could be dropped into generic buddy-cop formulas to take hits, make funny faces, and deliver heavily accented punchlines while the Western lead took the actual dramatic glory.
He was never seen as a true lead actor capable of carrying a massive, culturally rich narrative with heart, soul, and a profound, universal warmth.
Regal refused to repeat that mistake.
He wanted to see Jackie in a brand new, highly charismatic avatar; an underdog hero who didn't need to punch a single person to make the audience believe in the magic of his spirit.
And that was exactly why he had chosen–
[Shaolin Soccer]
It was a film built entirely on Chinese culture, filled with authentic Chinese actors, utilizing the beautiful, expressive grammar of Cantonese comedy, and centered on a sport that carried a massive, global resonance.
"They reunite, form a soccer team, and start climbing through the local leagues, using techniques like Mighty Steel Leg, Iron Head, and Lightweight on Water, until they finally face a corrupt, hyper scientific team enhanced by modern athletic doping."
Jackie sat in absolute stillness, the sheer, brilliant absurdity of the premise settling into his mind.
He looked from Regal to the script, then back again, his brain trying to calculate the visual geometry of such a concept.
Jackie stared at Regal, then at the script, before looking back at him. "Kung fu... football?"
"Shaolin Soccer."
"Ah." Jackie nodded solemnly. "Very important difference."
Regal's expression remained perfectly straight, which only made Jackie more suspicious.
Rather than ask anything else, Jackie decided to read the script first. He leaned forward, picked it up and began turning through the pages.
….
A few minutes passed, then more, until he was completely absorbed in the script.
The disappointment that had been sitting quietly on his face began to disappear as the ridiculous possibilities started assembling themselves in his head.
"Mighty Steel Leg, Iron Head, Lightweight on Water..." His eyebrows climbed higher with every name. "Regal, this sounds like something a twelve year old boy would make up while he's supposed to be doing his homework."
"And?"
Jackie opened his mouth, paused, then suddenly laughed.
.
….
[To be continued…]
●──────●◎●──────●
Author Note:
Visit Patreon to instantly access +1 chapter for free, available for Free Members as well.
For additional content please do support me and gain access to +18 more chapters.
--> [email protected]/OrgoWriters
●──────●◎●──────●
A Small Announcement
Hey everyone!
If you've been enjoying [Hollywood: Lights, Ink, Entertainment!], I wanted to let you guys know about another story I've recently released under OrgoWriters.
🔥 [MHA: I Became Endeavor, Now I'll Fix Everything]
It's a completely different kind of story from Hollywood, but I'm really excited about how it's turning out. If you're a fan of MHA, or just want to give another one of my stories a try, I'd really appreciate you checking it out!
Thanks, as always, for reading and supporting my work! ❤️
— OrgoWriters