At the Los Angeles press day for the film (which is distributed by Warner Bros Pictures), Kumar recalled how he first learned of the kung fu film. "There was no script at all. This guy comes with a poster and he got my photograph maybe from the net or something, and maybe one or two samurais and I said okay. Then after that we hit upon the idea of making Chandni Chowk to China. I used my star power."
Kumar says it meant a great deal to him to be able to work with Gordon Liu on Chandni Chowk to China. Liu plays the main villain in the film, and Kumar has respected Liu's work for years. "He's the master killer. Looking at 36th Chamber of Shaolin, okay, I used to be there with my friends creating chambers in my house where they had this box full of sand. We used to heat it up and put our hands inside, burn it off at the same time. There were other kinds of exercises," explained Kumar, adding, "It's a must [see] film."
"I can't imagine in my life that something like this would happen," said Kumar about working on a kung fu movie with Liu. "See, I was a waiter and a cook working in Thailand and I had three favorite people. I had three posters behind where I was working. One was Sri Devi, that's an Indian actress, a very big actress. Then I had Sylvester Stallone, and then I had the 36th Chamber of Shaolin photograph. I used to just work there. The surprise of my life, how life could change, I have worked with all three of them. I'm so shocked at how things have changed. When he told me about it, I was absolutely [shocked]. I just sometimes keep on thinking, why didn't I keep more posters? So many other things also. Maybe that was a very magical wall."
Kumar has to do a little bit of everything in Chandni Chowk to China, including dancing and fighting. Of the two, Kumar says dancing was much more difficult. "Dancing is very hard because I've trained myself in martial arts. So to do fighting is a little bit easier than dancing. Dancing, I can't dance to help myself. When I dance, it looks as if I'm fighting, so it's more like aerobics and things of that sort."
Kumar's done 120 films over his 18 year career, but this was the first film in which he worked with Chinese martial artists on choreographing fight scenes. "I thought I was very good at martial arts. I thought I was very good at cable work and all until I met these guys. And I found myself very slow in front of them. I broke my back, by the way, doing the cable work. I have a slipped disc problem because of that now."
Fortunately, revealed Kumar, he did not have to take time off from work after injuring his back.
Something else Kumar experienced for the very first time was shooting a film on the Great Wall of China. "We were lucky enough to get [a permit], actually. We were very lucky and we finished 15 days' work in seven days because we only had seven days permission. And the camera man gets upset all the time because it's sunny, it's raining, so he's so annoyed with the whole thing," laughed Kumar.
Kumar thinks that Chandni Chowk to China could start a new trend of mixing in martial arts in Bollywood movies. "It is going to. We had to come up with something different. Yeah, I'm sure you've never seen the first Bollywood kung fu film. People are going to like this combination or not like it. I have no idea."
And as for working with Hollywood on this project, Kumar couldn't have been more satisfied with the experience. "We just got everything, whatever we wanted. It's an honor working with them. I was actually, six months back, I was shooting in LA for a month. For 45 days I was here shooting. I finished a whole film, Kambakkht Ishq, at Universal Studios. That was great. It's all so organized. We learned quite a lot from here when we go back home. We try to put it back in Bollywood. Like, I've taken a call sheet back home and I've showed them, 'Let's make a call sheet like this.'"
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Chandni Chowk to China hits theaters in wide release on January 16, 2009.
