CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF JET LI, THE DELIBERATIVE ACTION STAR, COMES FORTH WITH A PROPULSIVE THRILLER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

East meets West about halfway in between for ``Kiss of the Dragon.'' But despite the film's title and the fact that its action takes place in romantic Paris, there is no kissing in the movie.

Too much of that action taking place for any mushy stuff.

Conceived by star Jet Li - the Beijing-born, Hong Kong martial arts movie superstar who's been making inroads into Hollywood with the likes of ``Lethal Weapon IV'' and ``Romeo Must Die'' - the brutal and kinetic thriller follows the misadventures of a top Chinese detective through the darker districts of the City of Light. Framed by the corrupt French cop Richard (Tcheky Karyo) he has naively come to help, Liau Jiuan (Li) soon finds himself taking on what seems like the entire French underworld and the Paris police force combined. His only allies are his amazing fighting skills and a unique form of acupuncture ... and, eventually, a strung-out American hooker, Bridget Fonda's Jessica, who's got her own score to settle with Richard.

Co-produced in English by Li and French flash master Luc Besson (``La Femme Nikita,'' ``The Professional''), directed by Besson protege Chris Nahon and scripted by American Robert Mark Kamen (``The Karate Kid,'' Besson's ``The Fifth Element''), this most international of production's fortunes rest on the hope that up-close-and-personal, bone-crunching action excites audiences everywhere in the world.

``Kiss of the Dragon'' opened in fourth place at North American box offices last weekend with a fair-to-middling summer haul of $13.3 million.

For Li, who is trying to distinguish his work from his more comical fellow Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan's and the fantastical, wire-assisted acrobatics of the ``Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' school in the eyes of Western audiences, now seemed like a good time to take the gloves off.

``After 'Romeo Must Die,' a lot of hard-core Jet Li fans thought it wasn't as good as my older films,'' says the diminutive, friendly Li in passable English. ``Then, when I saw 'The Matrix,' I knew what would happen would be exactly what happened 10 years ago in Hong Kong when people first started flying around on wires: There would be 100 movies where everybody flies around.

``So I thought that it was time for me to do some hard-core fighting.''

What Fonda found

For Fonda, the chance to appear in a Hong Kong martial arts movie with French style and an American budget was a near-irresistible combination. She'd become a fan of the genre while attending college, where every weekend there were kung fu film screenings. And the chance to actually meet and work with Besson for the first time - after having played the lead role in ``Point of No Return,'' the Hollywood remake of ``La Femme Nikita'' - was another opportunity not to be passed up.

Plus, Paris! Who needed to read a script before she got there?

``It was so bizarre,'' notes the 37-year-old, third-generation movie professional. ``I arrived and that day I had to do my wardrobe fitting without having read the script. And when I saw what they showed up with, I thought, 'Are you guys trying to tell me something about what I'm in for?' ''

``That's completely not what I ever do; I am a person who goes completely by script and story,'' adds Fonda, who signed on knowing only that she'd be playing a junkie streetwalker. ``But lately I've been feeling, I guess, pretty secure about causing enough trouble if I don't like something that it'll work out. I don't know what it is; I guess my intention is to make it better, and if they don't make it better, then I can get on a plane home. But I thought, why not have an adventure?''

That's the old Yankee spirit. But another very American concern, the possible effect of the film's graphic level of violence on very young viewers, also worried Li. That's why he took the unusual step, in a posting on his Internet Web site a few weeks ago, of telling his many young fans and their parents that ``Kiss of the Dragon'' is a film designed solely with adults in mind.

``One mother e-mailed me saying, 'Oh, my little 3-year-old boy is really excited about seeing 'Kiss of the Dragon,' '' he says of the impetus for his warning. ``And I think, I'm a parent, I have a 14-month-old daughter. I figured I had to take some responsibility and answer that, to remind her that this is a movie for adults, and that other parents need to take responsibility for their children, also. It depends with each kid, but each parent has to decide if they want their children to watch this movie or not.''

Although Fonda had little to do with the violent action - running away in high-heeled boots was about as dangerous as things got for her - she admits that the psychic brutality her character suffers was almost too much to bear, even for a sophisticated grown-up like herself.

``It's gotten worse for me, the older I've gotten, to play a character who's getting slapped around a lot,'' she confesses. ``It takes it out of you, and not only physically because you're whipping your head and wrenching your neck and falling on the ground. There's a thing about the rage that happens when someone is looking right in your face and they're about to hit you. Even though they're going to miss you, it's a weird, primal, gut feeling that just gets you so fried.''

Despite the deadly prowess Li displays throughout the movie, he claims that Liu was conceived as a kind of antidote to the unbelievably invincible, death-dealing heroes that Hollywood has been cranking out since at least the early-'80s heyday of Stallone and Schwarzenegger.

A flawed hero

``We didn't want to make a superhero who saves the day, who the moment he comes out you know will beat everybody up,'' he says. ``This man is not perfect: He's selfish, only cares about the work that he's doing, doesn't know how to deal with girls. Then the situation changes and he's scared, he runs away. Everyone's his enemy and it makes him nervous. That brings him closer to being a real person, and at the end he finds that it's very important for a man to keep his promise.''

This is where the woebegone Jessica comes in, crucially, to the plot.

``Usually, for an action movie, the actress plays a beautiful flower,'' Li explains. ``There's fight-fight-fight, then bring in the flower for some rest in between. But in this film, Bridget's character is the key between the good guy and bad guy. She makes the whole situation change and, also, my character learns a lot of things from her: how other people think, women think, emotion. He learns to take responsibility for another person; so my character grows up through her.''

Fonda says that her co-star/producer couldn't have cast anybody better than himself for the role of needs-to-learn-a-lot Liu.

``Jet's really amazing, first of all because he learned in only a few years how to communicate in English, and then on top of it he's this very gentle, sweet person - but he's lethal!'' she says with a laugh. ``He's the real thing, he's not the movie thing. And because of that, he's pretty fascinating to watch. He's also incredibly charming and has a mischievous sense of humor.''

And, maybe, just a little bit of unreconstructed sexism. Li's ``beautiful flower'' metaphor, while certainly true of a lot of Asian action cinema, seems rather retro after a good decade's worth of Hong Kong fighting girl flicks and the female-centric swordplay of international hit ``Crouching Tiger.'' Asked why he turned down Ang Lee's invitation to take the role that eventually went to Chow Yun-Fat in the Oscar-winning movie, Li's first response - and, to a lesser extent, his second one - has an unmistakable ring of chauvinism.

``Did you see the movie? The men's parts in it? That's the reason,'' Li says. ``Also, 10 years ago I promised my wife that, if she got pregnant, I would stop my working until the baby was born. That happened when Ang Lee was making the film, but we had discussed it for a long time and I introduced him to the choreographer and a lot of other people who helped Ang make it.''

An issue of money?

As for turning down an offer to appear in the currently filming, back- to-back ``Matrix'' sequels, Li sidesteps widespread reports that it was because he wasn't offered enough money for the nearly year-long double shoot.

``The Wachowski brothers are friends of mine; we always talk about making movies because they love Hong Kong action movies,'' he says of the ``Matrix'' mavens, whose first film in the series did as much as any movie to accustom American audiences to Asian-style action. ``I liked 'Matrix' 1 a lot and it was a very successful movie. I can guarantee that Part 2 and Part 3 will be successful, too. So why do they need Jet Li in it? I want the time to do my own work, so audiences have the choice to see both kinds of movies.''

That work continues with ``The One,'' a metaphysical sci-fi actioner, due out this fall, in which Li plays multiple roles. And he's soon off to his old homeland to make ``Hero,'' an intellectual inquiry into what that label actually means, with China's acclaimed art film director Zhang Yimou (``Raise the Red Lantern,'' the recently released ``The Road Home'').

As for ``Kiss' '' no-kiss approach, Li reckons that that's a new wrinkle, too.

``She tries to understand what his life is like and he learns to know her,'' he explains. ``We wanted to explore a different angle of the man-woman movie relationship.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) JET LI must fly

Martial arts star talks about his post-`Romeo Must Die' role in the new film `Kiss of the Dragon' (2) Thugs, not hugs: Jet Li, who said he wanted to pack more fighting into his latest film, has all he can handle in ``Kiss of the Dragon.''

(3) no caption (Jet Li)

Leslie Hassler/Associated Press

(4) Jet Li and Bridget Fonda share a common enemy - but that's all - in the action-oriented thriller.