April 7: Jackie Day — Celebrate Jackie Chan’s birthday!

The Protector was a troubled creation. Initially, it would be written by Robert Clouse for Christmas 1982, but that got. However, that version was delayed after Project A went over schedule. After some retooling, James Glickenhaus came on to direct, which led to this movie being sold as “When the no. 1 action director meets the no. 1 action star… Watch out!”

Guess what? They didn’t get along. Chan learned that no one in America cared about taking the time to do fight choreography. In Hong Kong, he’d get a month to do one. In America? Two days.

This meant there were two versions, one for the U.S. and the other for Hong Kong. In both, Jackie plays Billy Wong, an NYPD cop who gets a new partner, Danny Garoni (Danny Aiello), and heads to Hong Kong to stop a kidnapping and a drug deal. Even though the goal was to make Jackie into Clint Eastwood — had no one learned that they tried to make him into Bruce Lee and it didn’t work until he was himself? — but at least he fights Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. The Hong Kong version adds a dancer — May-Fong Ho (Sally Yeh) — whose father was killed by gangsters.

Wrestling fans may be surprised to see Big John Studd show up in the beginning. There’s no extended battle between him and Jackie, who shoots him. Studd, who was born in Saxonburg, PA, is also in Double Agent, The Marrying Man, Harley Davidson and the Marloboro Man, Hyper Space, Caged In Paradiso and Micki & Maude. He also appeared in episodes of The A-Team, Hunter and Beauty and the Beast.

After this, Jackie made the movie he wanted with Police Story. He wouldn’t be a star in the U.S. until Rumble In the Bronx. As for the Robert Crouse script that he didn’t make, it would be filmed as China O’Brien with another Golden Harvest star, Cynthia Rothrock.

You can watch this on Tubi.