Hong Kong action hero Jackie Chan said Friday he wanted to make a film about the massive earthquake which hit China this month to raise money for victims. Chan is best known for blockbusters like the "Rush Hour" series and "Drunken Master" but said the new project would represent a change of tone because he had been so deeply affected by what happened.
The official death toll from the quake, which hit Sichuan province on May 12, is now over 55,000. It is China's worst disaster in a generation. "Tomorrow we have big meeting with some directors, some scriptwriters - why? I want to make the movie about the earthquake because there's so many touching stories," an emotional Chan told a press conference in London.
"Every story I've seen just makes me cry... I believe there's so, so many touching stories so tomorrow we're going to have a big meeting to see what happens. "I want through the movie to show the whole world, I really want to salute the whole army of China, really," he said, without giving further details of who he was referring to.
He added that the movie would "raise money for charity". Chan has donated 1.5 million dollars (953,000 euros) to help earthquake victims and vowed to help rebuild schools affected by the disaster. He said there would be charity events in Hong Kong and Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, next month to benefit earthquake victims featuring around 100 Asian artists.
The star stopped off in London after visiting the Cannes film festival in France, where he was promoting "Wushu", a film he produced which tells the story of five friends training in martial arts. Chan, who is to speak to students at Oxford University later, also spoke of his sadness at protests which disrupted the Olympic torch relay around the world ahead of the Beijing games which take place in August.