"If you're in Hong Kong, you don't really see the Chinese regime. In fact, you don't at all. Hong Kong is still the way it was before the handover."

The concept of a war between China and the West is treated in a kind of cartoony fashion in the film. But you're a popular Asian film star, and the reality of the Chinese regime is very real for someone who works in Hong Kong. How do you feel about the politics of Tomorrow Never Dies?

I don't think this is so much a political film in that way. I think it's good that it's moved away from pointing out, "This is the bad guy," "The Russians are the bad guys," or "The Chinese are the bad guys." This is about a man who has the power to make a lot of chaos if he decides to, and which he has decided to do in Tomorrow Never Dies. And I think with the political situation nowadays in Hong Kong and in China, everybody should just step back and let them have some breathing room and space and all that. Because it is a major transition that's happening over there, but you can see that it's happening in a very positive way, and people should just let go and let things go smoothly, and be positive about it. Because if you're in Hong Kong, you don't really see the Chinese regime. In fact, you don't at all. Hong Kong is still the way it was before the handover. And it didn't happen overnight. It's been happening for the last few years since there was the announcement that it [would be] going back to China. We all look at it like it's not Hong Kong going back in, it's China coming out, you know? And Hong Kong is in a great position to be the gateway to the next biggest market in the world.

Tomorrow Never Dies is dealing with issues of society today. The media is a very powerful form of communication and it's influential in many ways. Because some people who don't get to travel so much depend and rely on the news to tell them what to think and what to feel. And in the wrong hands, and given people who are very biased on certain things and certain issues, it could be quite negative.

In terms of the geopolitics of the film, the notion of the British and the Chinese squaring off is something that has a lot of historical resonance.

Right. It's happened before.

And changed the course of history for both.

Yeah! But the thing is, it will never happen again. [Laughs.] I think that's what we have to have in mind, that things like that will . . . shouldn't happen again.

You kissed Bond at the end of the film. I think the problem is solved right there.

Yes. Solve it with a kiss. Forget about arms.

You mention how Hong Kong essentially hasn't changed. I interviewed Jackie [Chan] not so long ago, and both he and [Hong Kong director] Ringo Lam talked about how the Hong Kong film industry was suffering. Because there is a talent drain, and there was a certain amount of confusion about what was going to be permissible. Has that problem corrected itself?

I think it has. Definitely. I think right at the beginning when [the handover] was announced, there was a talent drain in every area, in every field. Because people were not sure, and there was a lot of bad feeling about Hong Kong going back, and [that] it will just be a Communist country, and [that] Hong Kong would not be able to run the way it has for so many years. But if you look at Hong Kong now, it is running the way it has been running for so long.

How about the movies themselves?

If you look at the Hong Kong film industry, you know, you've seen the Hong Kong films. You know the industry very well. They always go on a wave. There's up, there's low. I don't think there's anything to do with the handover that it's at a low right now, because Hong Kong filmmakers have this thing of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. If there is a hit about the Triads [Hong Kong crime "families"], a film that comes out and is a big hit, then there will be a hundred and fifty similar films being made in the next three months.

It's not so different here in the States.

Exactly. So I think it's a worldwide thing. And you know, it's also the economy in the whole of Asia--it's not just Hong Kong. Look at the Asian market right now. [Most Asian markets had been in crisis during the weeks prior to this interview.] Who wants to invest in something when there's no return at the present moment? So it's just a matter of waiting. With Hong Kong, for two years, it will be on a real high, and then boom! It will go straight down, and then before you know it, it will go up on a high again. Yes--there's cause for concern about what can be filmed and what can't be filmed. But I think it's something that they've been facing all along. They want to go into the Chinese market, and it is an incredibly huge market: you're talking about films for a billion people. And in Asia, with Malaysia, with Singapore, with Thailand, the censorship, the strict boundaries of what is accepted and what is not accepted, has always been there. Censorship has always been very hard in the whole of Asia, except for Hong Kong, actually. And Hong Kong film seems to be getting made the same way it was before.

There's talk about doing two versions of films, right? One for the mainland and one for Hong Kong. Which, I think, has always happened.

Oh yeah! All the time. It's like, it goes to Malaysia, it goes to Singapore, all the kissing scenes would be out right away.

But the problem won't be solved at the end of the movie because you won't get to kiss Pierce!

Well . . . there are other ways of solving the problem. [Laughs.]

Where do you plan to concentrate your energies now: in Hong Kong or--

In Hollywood. Well, the thing is, I have the best of both worlds now. I'm in this position where traveling is so easy that I don't have to make an option, I don't have to make the choice of living here or there, or working only on Hollywood films or on Hong Kong productions. I can go here, I can do whatever. But my biggest goal is to see a lot more collaborative efforts between the two. Because there's so much talent, and so much landscape to shoot over in the East, and there's a lot of interest out there. And to have the American technology, the funds, and all that, to go over to Asia and expose all the Asian talent I think would be a very, very good thing.