Ben Apfelbaum

PRODUCTION STARTS IN SYDNEY ON JACKIE CHAN’S ‘BLEEDING STEEL’

Featured Image- left to right- Jackie Chan, young cast member, Nana Ouyang, Acting Premier Troy Grant, Director Leo Zhang, Erica Xia-Hou and Tess Haubrich

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Nana Ouyang, Charlie Chan, Erica Xia-Hou and Tess Haubrich.

Mega film star Jackie Chan was anything but a bleeding heart, in fact he was in very high spirits and joking with the media throng, at his press conference in the  Utzon room at the Sydney Opera House celebrating the announcement that shooting has begun in Sydney on his new  film  BLEEDING STEEL, directed by Leo Zhang.

The press conference was emceed by the redoubtable Lee Lin Chin. The film represents his first sci-fi film and he is hoping that the opening scene will be a spectacular stunt by him from the top of the Opera House.

BLEEDING STEEL will be his fourth film to be made in Australia. His last Australian film was MR NICE GUY made in 1996 in Melbourne. Chan  joked that he could be an excellent tour guide for his young Chinese cast members, Nana Ouyang and Erica Xia-Hou. Also present was the film’s female villain, Australian actress Tess Haubrich.

BLEEDING STEEL is going to be the biggest budget Chinese production ever to be shot in Australia.

Australia is where Chan – born Chan Kong-sang- was given the nickname ‘Jackie’ whilst he was working on a construction site. Chan spoke about how he lived in Canberra for two years where his late parents lived for some 46 years. Chan’s father working as a head chef at the United States Embassy before opening a successful local restaurant. In 2008 he funded and opened the Jackie Chan Science Foundation in Canberra as a tribute to his late parents.

Chan’s film career extends back over fifty years, and after all these years with his dangerous stunts he is still very much standing.  He perhaps facetiously,  remarked that he would like to be in a romantic film, as action films were too exhausting!

The scenario to BLEEDING STEEL sees Chan play a hardened special force agent Lin who fights to protect a young woman who is an important witness in a major conspiracy case. 

On Saturday evening 6th August Chan  will appear in conversation at the Concert Sydney Opera House as part of the year long Sydney Opera House Talks and Ideas program.

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/Jackie_Chan.aspx

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.