by Paul Fischer

It seems ironic that Bridget Fonda is co-starring in the new Jet Li actioner Kiss of the Dragon. Ironic, because the movie was co-written and produced by Luc Besson, and the actress appeared in the Hollywood remake of Besson's La Femme Nikita. Fonda merely smiles but is also grateful that this time around, she does very little butt-kicking. "After I said that I'd do the movie, there was a call back the next day, and I said, 'Am I supposed to be doing action?' You have to tell me if I'm supposed to be getting into physical shape like I did in Point of No Return. I trained for 6 weeks to learn how to do the fighting for that. Just to get limber enough not to pull every muscle in my body. But Luc said, 'No, no, you just do all the running away.' All I had to do was turn up and look out of it", she adds, referring to her role as a junkie hooker in the movie.

In Kiss of the Dragon, Jet Li plays Liu Jiuan, a mainland Chinese cop travels from Shanghai to Paris to track down the heroin connection to his country. His police connection in Paris is Jean-Pierre Richard, a brutally corrupt cop. When the mission goes horribly wrong, Liu falls into a deadly trap and becomes embroiled in a vast conspiracy - accused of a murder he didn't commit, on the run in a city he doesn't know. When Liu is thrown together with an American woman forced into prostitution, the unlikely duo goes up against the cunning and ruthless adversary who set this trap in motion.

Fonda took the unusual step of agreeing to do Kiss of the Dragon even prior to seeing a finished script and putting herself in the hands of a first-time director. "I looked at it as a chance to have an adventure", she explains. "First of all, I really liked Jet Li and from everything I know about him, people have said that he's the most decent guy who he turned out to be, and what he wants to do, more than anything, is to do good work that he can stand behind. So I knew that we weren't going to have anything exploitative." Then of course there's Luc Besson as an added attraction, "who has his own style and is very strong and opinionated." So Fonda felt that "any time you were going to take a chance this it, so I signed on for the adventure." An adventure which included not being cast as merely 'the girl' in what is clearly a male genre. "I knew that wouldn't happen in a Luc Besson movie. He loves women too much; there's no way he could let her be just the girl. So what could easily have been 'the girl' part gets woven more into the story. Besides, I'd just stomp my feet until I got my own way, anyhow", she adds laughingly.

Fonda has been 'stomping her feet' in Hollywood since her starring role in 1989's acclaimed Scandal. Despite her famous family, there was no added pressure for her to become actress, but admits she "was pretty defiant as a kid, and everything had to be my way. In a strange way, I didn't think I was going to act until I did a school play, liked it and I thought maybe I would try." But there was no way the precocious youngster "would take any advice on the subject, even if I needed it, especially from my dad. So I was going to do it my way." And she did. "Looking back on it, I saved a lot of time insisting on seeing what I had, instead of trying to skip a few steps along the way."

Fonda has always had sense of defiance, but not in a tantrum-filled way, but more "like being a tempest in a teapot. I really doubt that there'd be any stories about me being such a nightmare. I think I've been spoiled by having worked with people who I felt had earned their respect, so I require it." Fonda has earned that respect over the years, appearing in over 40 films, from the likes of Singles and Single White Female, to Godfather 3, Mr. Jealousy and Jackie Brown. In the past 15 years, Fonda has established herself, within the Hollywood community, as a committed, no-nonsense professional, an actress first, celebrity second. The actress says that she has been able to avoid the more celebrityism aspects of her job, "because I tend not to get harassed. I doubt that I'd handle it too well if I were. Consciously or unconsciously, I don't tend to court a lot of attention and try not to air my dirty laundry in public; I'm not an exhibitionist in that way."