Actor. Director. Entrepreneur. It seems like there’s not much Daniel Wu can’t turn his hand to. As his latest movie, Shinjuku Incident, hits our screens, he tells us why he’s the outsider that’s changing the business from within. By Paul Kay. Photos by Wing Shya.

The air is thick with hip-hop beats and cigarette smoke in Wing Shya’s Chai Wan studio as local rap outfit 24Herbs get set for their close up. Stylists scuttle past, smoothing crooked lapels and ferrying Diesel jackets to and fro, while a seemingly endless procession of delivery guys arrive with Styrofoam boxes of char siu fan and paper-cup lemon teas.

As Dor Yuk, Drunk, Sir JBS, Ghost Style, Kit, and Phat strike the requisite bad boy poses, someone shouts for Shya to hold fire. One of the assistants fiddles with the iPhone that’s plugged into the stereo, and seconds later 24Herbs’ Cantonese rhymes start to spit from the speakers.

“Now that’s narcissism – doing a photo shoot to your own music,” says Daniel Wu as he strolls up beside me.
I’m here to interview Wu, one of the brightest stars of Hong Kong cinema, about his role in Derek Yee’s Shinjuku Incident, the film that opens this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival. In it, Wu stars opposite Jackie Chan as a Chinese immigrant in Tokyo who gets caught up in organised crime.

I’m also here to talk to Wu about his increasingly diverse side projects, such as his involvement in Alivenotdead.com, the social-networking-cum-fan site he co-founded with Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang (of RottenTomatoes.com fame) and fellow actor Terence Yin; his recent collaboration with the Knowledge clothing brand started by Julius Brian Siswojo, aka Sir JBS of 24Herbs; and his recent move into artist management with his Revolution Talent Management agency.

When I sit down with Wu, I find it hard to keep up. He talks in rapid-fire – and with obvious passion – about his various projects, but somehow manages to come across as laidback courtesy of his liberal use of Californianisms such as ‘like’ and ‘whatever’.

Born in Berkeley, and raised in various Californian cities, Wu holds a degree in architecture from the University of Oregon. You wouldn’t know it from his varied movie roles, myriad glossy endorsements, and frequent paparazzi snaps alongside his long-term girlfriend (model/TV presenter Lisa S.)but he’s a keen skater and snowboarder. Add in his rather better known martial arts abilities, and it’s easy to see how he keeps in such good shape – although he tells me that he broke his leg skateboarding and damaged his cruciate ligaments wushu training last year, and that he’s recently started smoking again after giving up a couple of years ago.

Wu first arrived Hong Kong in 1997 to witness the handover. A couple of years later he was forging a career as a successful model and actor who could count Jackie Chan among his mentors. Fast-forward a decade and he and Chan, who has described Wu as being “like a son”, are co-stars in the latest film by Derek Yee, a director that has previously brought out the best in Wu in the likes of One Nite in Mongkok (2004), Drink-Drank-Drunk (2005) and Protégé (2007). Wu speaks highly of Yee – “When Derek asks me to do a part, I just do it, I don’t even need to read the script” – but is even more enthusiastic on the subject of working with Chan. “He’s amazing,” says Wu. “His work ethic, and his way of looking at life and dealing with all that stuff – I respect that a lot. In this movie we had a lot of downtime and a lot of scenes together. We were hanging out a lot, so I got to know him more as a person, as opposed to being a dai lo, or older brother. But it’s trippy working with him because you’re chatting with him, then you step out the car and there’s millions of fans all over the place, and you’re like ‘whoah’, because you forget that he’s this crazy international superstar.”

It’s not the first time Wu has worked with Chan but, in terms of screen time and star billing, it’s by far their most notable collaboration. And Wu’s role as the tragically flawed Jie is certainly memorable, as he makes the transition from innocent immigrant to goth-styled drug dealer after a disfiguring attack. “It was a surprise when I got this gig to see how fun it was,” says Wu. “It’s dark, it’s violent, and very real in some ways, but in other ways hyper-real. My character goes through this very extreme transformation, from being this cowardly young kid to being this crazy drug dealer. Basically he’s the same coward, he’s just using this mask to hide his fears.”

Wu explains that the character’s look was based on Brandon Lee in cult 1990s hit The Crow, and that Jie is the type of role that always appeals to him. “I think it’s harder to play heroic figures,” speed-muses Wu, “because they tend to be flawless, and it’s hard to draw from reality for that. Bad guys are more enjoyable to play because they’re more complex if they’re written well, and there’s more to grab onto, more I can understand as a person. And also I like going there, going to the dark side a little bit more because I feel that it’s a truth in everybody – it’s just whether you know how to face it… or whether you can face it.”

With his crew of close friends in evidence around us, tucking into their takeaways and chewing the fat in Cantonese (in addition to 24Herbs, fellow Revolution-aries Terence Yin, actor and special-effects man Andrew Lin, drummer Jun Kung, and windsurfer-turned actor Ken Wong are here to look cool under Shya’s blinking lens), I ask Wu what he plugs into to play such an outsider. “Growing up in the States I was always an outsider,” he says. “Race was one issue; secondly, the things I was into, like skating and punk rock were kind of to the side. Then I went to this really stuffy high school, which I didn’t relate to. So I’ve always considered myself an outsider, which is why I’m drawn to these kind of characters. I feel uncomfortable being part of the mainstream here.”

Wu is uncomfortable, too, with the lack of good roles for Asian film stars in his native US, and says it’s something he’d like to help change. “I’d like to make a place for Asian-American actors,” says Wu. “We’re starting to see it a little on TV, like in Heroes and Lost, but these guys are still playing really stereotyped Asian roles, which I’m tired of seeing, ‘cos I’ve seen that for like 20 fucking years. The nerd Asian – I’m tired of that. I’m tired of the overly insensitive male Asian. Or the triad Asian. Or the kung fu guy. All those stereotypes have just been recycled over and over again, so I’m not interested in doing that – at all. I’ve been offered those kinds of roles before but I suppose I’m representing a generation of people, and I just wanna do it right.”

There’s a refreshing streak of idealism in Wu, and a sharp intelligence and sense of humour that makes him a convincing conversationist. He also seems remarkably grounded for a man with such celebrity, and is pragmatic about the media attention he attracts, noting the necessity of it all to keep his career rolling, but identifying it as merely a means to an end that allows him to keep doing the things that really interest him.

Says Wu: “The advantages of [a high profile are] helping out friends when you can, doing things you want to do. But I try to make sure that I have both feet on the ground at all times. At the end of the day [this business] is very selfish, and very self-absorbed, and very narcissistic, and the only way I can get around being comfortable with that is by also doing things that I think this town needs.”

Lately, that drive has taken Wu into expansive new areas. “I’m kind of a workaholic,” he says, “so I’m trying to focus my downtime on doing something really constructive, like helping out my friends here, or working on Alivenotdead.com... doing stuff I believe in. It just makes me feel a lot better as a person than fucking off and going travelling or shopping or whatever.”

Wu and Co. launched Alivenotdead in early 2007, using the website he had set up for the fake boy band that was the subject of his directorial debut, 2006’s well-received mockumentary The Heavenly Kings (for which he won the best new director award at the Hong Kong Film Awards). Intended as a forum to connect artists and their fans, the site quickly snowballed. “At the time we didn’t think of it as a social-networking site,” says Wu. “We didn’t even know what that was. We just wanted to make a community of creative people, and make a community of people who can appreciate these people, and get these people together. I was tired of sitting around complaining about what Hong Kong didn’t have, so I said let’s try and do this, and then it sort of grew on its own.”

Revolution seems like the logical extension of this website, and came about when Wu’s manager, Willie Chan, retired. Rather than be absorbed into Media Asia Entertainment Group, Wu decided to go it alone – or rather go it with his friends. “I thought, ok, let’s just open our own company,” says Wu. “It’s a great situation because it’s like a family, and we work well together, but we understand the bottom line: just do stuff, get stuff out there, and try.”

The family analogy is no exaggeration: Wu and his Revolution buddies are a close-knit bunch. As well as their numerous business collaborations, they hang out on a regular basis, and Wu is just back from a visit to Sichuan to build houses for earthquake victims with 24Herbs’ Phat and Ghost Style, Jun Kung, and Ken Wong. Before that, he tells me, he was on a snowboarding trip to Hokkaido with Dor Yuk, Lisa S., and artist Simon Birch.

But every family needs a don, and it’s evident that Wu is the man in the big chair. There’s a palpable, and mutual, sense of respect that Wu generates among his crew, and you get the feeling they’d all take a bullet – on screen, at any rate – for the man they call ‘D’.

Our interview is almost done, but there’s still time for Wu to sum up. “My requirements in life become simpler and simpler,” he says. “Before I wanted to do so much, and wanted to do this kinda movie, that kinda movie, but now I’m taking life a little more slowly and looking for projects that I haven’t done before. It’s broadened my horizons.”

And with that, it’s time for Wu to join the rest of the Revolution squad in front of the huge white backdrop to get ready for the posse shot. “Revolution Gigolos!” hollers Sir JBS, and the group crack up. From atop a ten-foot ladder, Shya starts snapping, counting “yat, yi, saam” to signal when everyone should jump. The result makes for the picture on the previous double-page spread. “It looks like an advert for Stomp,” joshes Wu when he checks out the display screen.

“Yeah,” laughs Sir JBS. “Revolution Gigolos: The Musical.”

Shinjuku Incident opens the HKIFF on Sunday 22, with Derek Yee, Jackie Chan and Daniel Wu in attendence, and opens generally on April 2.

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Time regained: Wong Kar Wai
Presidential assassination: Oliver Stone
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