Jackie Chan don't need no stinking safety equipment.

At least, that's the way he's been doing his pre-American stunts in Asian action films all these years -- au naturel.

"I know what I can do, and what I can't do," Chan declared recently at the Righa Royal hotel in Manhattan.

But his introduction into the highly-insured and anal-retentive American Way for the film Rush Hour may have changed his mind.

Explaining to the director his intention for an especially tricky stunt the first day on set, "I changed into my tennis shoes, jumped into the tree, and jumped into a second-storey window," Chan recalls. "And everybody was like, 'Oh my GOD! Jackie! Okay, okay, get down! Show the photographer tomorrow!"

He did it a second time the next day.

But on the third day, when it came time to shoot it, "I said, 'Let's do it' -- and everything stopped," he says.

"We waited for a meeting with two insurance guys, and after, the safety captain, the stunt co-ordinator ..."

Then more waiting.

"They had to put a wire to make sure the tree doesn't break, then another wire all over the whole building to make sure the window doesn't fall, then put a mat below the tree. Now, they had to follow the rules."

A procedure he normally scoffs at as a waste of time and money, he says.

Until he performed the stunt again, this time over the studio's safety net.

"When I jumped through the window, now, I felt very safe. And we did it again and again. Not like in Asia when I do a stunt -- five cameras, one shot -- one, two, three, POW! I risk my life," he says.

"In America, you don't risk your life. I think that is good."

We may not risk lives, but we do put our asses on the line.

For another Rush Hour stunt, Chan had to slide down a canvas banner from 150 feet -- and he has the friction burns to prove it.

"The camera was rolling, I let go, I slide, and everything was perfect except for my (he points to his butt). It burned!

For the next take, I put on pads and four pairs of jeans."


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