Jackie Chan wants to be respected like De Niro

VENICE, Sep 8 (Reuters) Tired of his image as all-action hero, Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan said today he wanted to be taken as seriously as Robert De Niro.

In Venice for the premiere of his new film ''Rob-B-Hood'', the master of the choreographed fight compared how he was greeted by fans gesticulating and shouting wildly, whereas he imagined De Niro commanded something closer to subdued awe.

''When they see me, 'Ah, ah Jackie Chan!''' the actor told a news conference after the press screening of Rob-B-Hood.

''I say, why does nobody say 'Robert De Niro!','' he added, speaking in English and waving his arms about excitedly.

''So I want to change, so that some day they say 'Wow, Jackie Chan' and not move again and again. So I want a change,'' he concluded with a smile, to warm applause from reporters.

The star of the ''Rush Hour'' series said he had already begun to branch out into different roles, and in Rob-B-Hood he plays a character on the wrong side of the law.

The film, in which Chan co-stars with Louis Koo, is a high-speed and humorous story about three dysfunctional crooks who kidnap a baby to deliver to a sinister tycoon but gradually fall for the infant.

The baby, in real life called Matthew Medvedev, undergoes some hair-raising adventures including a high speed car chase, being dropped from a hospital balcony and getting resuscitated using jump leads connected to a car battery.

''I've been looking to change my roles for quite some time,'' Chan said through a translator. ''I'm quite fed up with what I've acted so far in movies.

''So after going back to Hong Kong and setting up my business, you probably already have had a chance to observe this already happening, from the movie 'New Police Story' and 'The Myth' and now this one, Rob-B-Hood.'' Chan, 52, seen as the successor to martial arts legend Bruce Lee, added he had done well to work in the genre for so long.

''We all know that the career of an action movie actor is quite short so I already consider myself a legend for still being around today.'' Rob-B-Hood is Chan's third collaboration with director Benny Chan, who described the difficulties shooting a film in which one of the central characters is a baby only a few months old.

''I can easily use up to a 1,000-foot roll of film on him and still can't get the shot I want,'' the director said in production notes. ''Needless to say ... I was over budget.'' The film is described in the notes as ''more zany than 'Raising Arizona' and more heartwarming than 'Three Men and a Baby','' referring to two other movies involving babies.

REUTERS MS KN1738