Jackie Chan

Chan Kong-sang (in Chinese, 陳港生) (Victoria Summit, Hong Kong; 7 April 1954), known by his stage name Jackie Chan is a martial artist, comedian, singer, actor, stunt performer, stuntman, stunt coordinator, director, screenwriter, producer, and chinese voice actor

His family is from Yantai, a city in Shandong province, which is known for having been the birthplace of great fighters. Chan is one of the few actors, along with the Thai Tony Jaa or the Englishman Scott Adkins, who makes martial arts movies without any doubles to help him during filming. The actor did his own stunts and has amassed an impressive list of injuries, including a dislocated ankle, a fractured hip and a sprained knee. His closest moment to death occurred during the filming of the tape The Armor of God in 1985, when he fell from a tree fracturing his skull.

He has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has been referenced in various popular songs, video games, and comics. As a singer he was also a star in the cantopop and mandopop genres, having released several albums and singing on many of the film soundtracks in which he has acted. He is also a well-known philanthropist. In 2015, Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at 350 million dollars. In 2016, Jackie Chan received an Honorary Oscar, due to his professional career.

Early Years

Jackie Chan was born on April 7, 1954 in Hong Kong as Chan Kong-sang. He is the son of Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, refugees from the Chinese civil war that ended just six years earlier. He was nicknamed Pao-pao (which in Chinese means "cannonball") because he was a very energetic boy, he was given the name "Gang Sheng", which means "Born in Hong Kong", although in China he is much better known by his Cantonese name: "Sheng Lon". His parents worked for the French consul in Hong Kong, so Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the consul's residence in Hong Kong district. Victoria Peak.

Chan attended Nah-Hwa Primary School on Hong Kong Island, where he failed to make it through his first year, after which his parents withdrew him from the school. In 1960, his father emigrated to Canberra, the Australian capital, to work as head chef at the US embassy, and Chan was sent to the China Dramatic Academy, a Peking Opera school run by the Master Yu Jim-yuen. There he studied for ten years under a strict discipline, under the command of what would be his stage partner Sammo Hung years later, enduring up to 19 hours a day of training and study. Eventually he became part of the Seven Little Fortunes, an acting troupe made up of the best students in the school, earning the stage name Yuen Lo in tribute to their teacher. Around this time, he became close friends with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, a trio that would be dubbed The Three Dragons years later. After entering the film industry, Chan along with Sammo Hung had the opportunity to train in hapkido with the great teacher Jin Kim, finally getting the black belt. Jackie Chan also trained in other styles of martial arts such as Karate, Judo, Chinese Boxing, Taekwondo, Eastern Kung fu, Wing Chung, and Jeet Kune Do.

He began his career appearing in small roles at the age of five as a child actor. At the age of eight he appeared in the film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar (1962) with Li Li-Hua playing his mother. Chan appeared with Li again the following year in The Love Eterne (1963) and had a small role in King Hu's 1966 film Come Drink with Me. In 1971, after appearing as an extra in the film A Touch of Zen, Chan signed with Chu Mu's Great Earth film company. At seventeen he worked as a stuntman on Bruce Lee's films Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon under the name of Chan Yuen Lung. In the latter film, Chan has a brief appearance as one of the attackers whose neck is snapped by Lee's character. He received his first leading role later that year in Little Tiger of Canton, which it had a limited release in Hong Kong in 1973. In the same year he appeared playing one of the villains in the film The Young Tiger, directed by Hdeng Tsu.

In 1975, due to the commercial failures of his early film ventures and much trouble finding work as a stuntman, Chan agreed to star in the adult film All in the Family in which he appears in her first sex scene. It is the only film he has made to date without a single fight scene, so by the time he was twenty years old, Chan had already participated in more than 25 film productions as an actor or as a stuntman.

Film career

First roles: 1976-1979

In 1976, Jackie Chan received a telegram from Willie Chan, a film producer in the Hong Kong film industry who was impressed with his stunt work. Willie Chan offered him an acting role in a film directed by the renowned Lo Wei. The director had seen Chan's performance in John Woo's film Hand of Death (1976) and his plan was to turn him into the new Bruce Lee with the film New Fist of Fury. His stage name was changed to Sing Lung (also transliterated as Cheng Long, literally "become the dragon") to emphasize his similarity to Bruce Lee, whose stage name meant "Little dragon" in Chinese. The film was unsuccessful because Chan was not used to Lee's serious style of martial arts. Despite the film's failure, Lo Wei continued to produce films with similar themes, but with little impact at the box office.

The 1978 film Snake in the Eagle's Shadow became Jackie's first real hit at home. Director Yuen Woo-ping allowed Chan full freedom in his stunt scenes. The film mixed the comedy and martial arts genres, establishing a new genre. The decision to change register and adopt a more comedic style, similar to that of American Buster Keaton, was Chan's way of resigning as the successor to Bruce Lee. While Lee's characters were stern heroes with a strong sense of morality, Chan plays well-meaning and somewhat clueless common men, often at the mercy of his girlfriends or relatives.

At the end of 1978, he starred in The Drunken Master, a film that would ultimately earn him success in Asia. After Chan's return to Lo Wei's studio, the director attempted to replicate the comedic approach of The Drunken Master producing the tapes Half a Loaf of Kung Fu and Spiritual Kung Fu. It also gave Chan the chance to make his directorial debut in The Fearless Hyena. When Willie Chan left the company, he advised Jackie about his future with the company. During the filming of Fearless Hyena Part II , Chan broke his contract and joined Golden Harvest, leading Lo to blackmail Chan through the triads, blaming Willie for the star's departure from he. The dispute was resolved with the help of actor-director Jimmy Wang Yu, allowing Chan to stay at Golden Harvest.

Action Comedy Success: 1980-1987

Willie Chan became Jackie's personal manager and best friend, and has been for over 30 years. He was instrumental in launching Chan's international career, beginning with his first forays into the American film industry in the 1980s. His first Hollywood film was 1980's The Big Brawl. A year later, he played a minor role in the film The Cannonball Run, a film that grossed $100 million worldwide and featured an all-star cast led by Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore.

After the commercial failure of The Protector in 1985, Chan temporarily abandoned his attempts to break into the US market, focusing again on the Hong Kong market. Chan's films began to reach a wider audience in East Asia, with initial successes in the lucrative Japanese market, including The Young Master (1980) and Dragon Lord (1982). The film The Young Master managed to break the box office records set by Bruce Lee and catapulted Chan as the main star of Hong Kong cinema. With Dragon Lord, the actor began experimenting with elaborate stunt sequences, including the final fight scene where he performs several stunts. Chan produced a series of action comedy films with his opera school friends Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. The three co-starred in the 1983 film Project A, which introduced a style of martial arts fueled by dangerous stunts. Over the next two years, the three actors appeared in Wheels on Meals and the original Lucky Stars trilogy. In 1985 Chan made the first film in the Police Story, an action comedy influenced by American cinema in which the actor performed a series of dangerous stunts. It was named Best Film at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1986 Chan played "Asian Hawk", an Indiana Jones-like character in the film Armor of God. The film was Chan's biggest domestic box office hit to that point, grossing over HK$35 million.

Successful sequels and the conquest of Hollywood: 1988-1998

In the 1988 film The Three Dragons, Chan starred opposite Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao for the last time. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jackie starred in a series of successful sequels beginning with Project A II and Police Story 2, which won the award for Best Action Choreography at the 1989 Hong Kong Film Awards. These were followed by Armor of God II: Operation Condor and Police Story 3: Super Cop, for which Chan won the Best Actor Award at the 1993 Golden Horse Film Festival. In 1994, Chan reprized his role as Wong Fei-hung in Drunken Master II, a film featuring on Time magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time. Another sequel, Police Story IV: First Strike, brought more awards and domestic box office success for Chan, although it was not very successful. well received in foreign markets.

Chan reignited his desire to make it in Hollywood in the 1990s, but he turned down some initial offers to play villains in Hollywood films to avoid being typecast in future roles. For example, Sylvester Stallone offered him the role of Simon Phoenix, a criminal in the futuristic film Demolition Man. Chan declined the offer and the role was taken by Wesley Snipes. Chan finally managed to conquer the North American market in 1995 with the worldwide release of Rumble in the Bronx, achieving a cult following in the United States that was rare for Hong Kong movie stars. He was even awarded an Honorable Mention Lifetime Achievement Award by the MTV Network Awards that same year. The success of Rumble in the Bronx led to the 1996 release of Police Story 3: Super Cop in the United States under the title Supercop, which grossed a total of US$16,270,600. After acting alongside Australian martial artist Richard Norton in Mr. Nice Guy from 1997, his success in the North American country was ratified with the successful police action film and comedy Rush Hour from 1998, starring alongside the American actor Chris Tucker. Rush Hour managed to gross $130 million in the United States alone and made Jackie a Hollywood star.

Fame in Hollywood: 1999-2007

Jackie Chan on December 2, 2002.

In 1998 Jackie starred in his final film for the Golden Harvest company, titled Who Am I? After leaving Golden Harvest in 1999 he produced and starred with Shu Qi in the film Danger in Hong Kong, a romantic comedy that focused on personal relationships and featured only a few martial arts sequences. Although Chan left Golden Harvest in 1999, the company continued to produce and distribute two of his films, the aforementioned Danger in Hong Kong (1999) and A Spy by Accident (2001). His success in Hollywood continued to rise after his collaboration with actor Owen Wilson on the Western action comedy Shanghai Noon, followed by a sequel in 2003. He reunited with Chris Tucker for the filming of Rush Hour 2 (2001), which was even more successful at the box office than the original film. He experimented with special effects with The Tuxedo (2002) and The Power of the Talisman (2003), which were not as critically or commercially successful. In 2004 he teamed up with Steve Coogan in another film adaptation of Jules Verne's novel Around the World in 80 Days.

Despite the success of the films Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon, Chan became frustrated with Hollywood because of the limited range of roles and lack of control over the process. of making the films. In response to Golden Harvest's withdrawal from the film industry in 2003, Chan founded his own film production company, JCE Movies Limited, in association with Emperor Multimedia Group (EMG). Since then, his films have featured an increasing number of dramatic scenes while continuing to be successful at the box office. Examples of them are the films New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005) and the successful Two and a Half Thieves (2006), where he plays a criminal who ends up regretting having kidnapped a baby from a wealthy family.

Chan's next release was the third installment in the Rush Hour series, released in August 2007. The film grossed $255 million. However, it was a disappointment in Hong Kong., grossing only HK$3.5 million during its opening weekend.

Change in style: 2008-present

Jackie Chan at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013.

Filming on The Forbidden Kingdom (released in 2008), Chan's first on-screen collaboration with fellow Chinese actor Jet Li, was completed on August 24, 2007, and the film was released in April 2008. That same year he provided the voice for the monkey in the animated film Kung Fu Panda, in a cast made up of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie. He also collaborated with Anthony Szeto as an advisor in the making of the film Wushu, released on May 1, 2008.

In November 2007, the actor began filming the film Revenge of the Dragon, playing a dramatic role that does not feature martial arts sequences. The film was released on April 2, 2009. On his blog, Chan expressed his desire to direct a film after finishing Revenge of the Dragon, something he hadn't done in years. The film was expected to be the third in the Armor series. of God and was titled Armor of God III: Chinese Zodiac. The film was finally released on December 12, 2012. Because the Screen Actors Guild did not go on strike, Chan began shooting his next Hollywood movie, The Spy Next Door, at the end of October in New Mexico. In the film, Chan plays an undercover agent whose secret is revealed when he babysits his girlfriend's children. In Little Big Soldier, the actor shares the leading role with Leehom Wang.

In 2010, he starred opposite Jaden Smith in the film The Karate Kid, a remake of the original 1984 film starring Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio. In the film, he plays Mr. Han, a kung fu master and handyman who teaches Jaden Smith's character martial arts so he can fend off school bullies. His role in The Karate Kid earned Jackie Chan the "Favorite Puncher" award. at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in 2011.

In his next film, Shaolin, he plays the temple cook instead of one of the main characters. His 100th film, 1911, was released on September 26, 2011. Chan served as co-director, executive producer, and starred in it. Although Chan has directed more than ten films during his career, this it was his first directorial work since 1998's Who Am I?. 1911 was released in North America on October 14, 2011. Cannes in 2012, Jackie announced that he was retiring from action films citing that he was getting too old for the genre. He later clarified that he would not retire from action movies entirely, but would instead perform fewer stunts and take more care of his body.

In 2013, Chan starred in Police Story 2013, a reboot of the Police Story franchise directed by Ding Sheng and released in China in late 2013. The following film Chan's Dragon Blade was released in early 2015. In 2015, Chan was given the title of "Datuk" from Malaysia while helping that country boost her tourism, especially in Kuala Lumpur, where she previously filmed her films. At the beginning of 2017, a new Jackie Chan film titled Kung Fu Yoga was released, a project starring Disha Patani, Sonu Sood and Amyra Dastur. The film reunited Chan with director Stanley Tong, who directed several of the actor's films in the 1990s. Upon release, the film was a huge success at the box office, becoming the fifth highest-grossing film in China, a month after its release. In 2016 he starred in Skiptrace and in 2017 he was part of the cast of The Foreigner , an Anglo-Chinese production co-starring with Pierce Brosnan. In 2017, he played special agent Lin Dong in the science fiction film Bleeding Steel, directed by Leo Zhang. That same year, he provided his voice in the animated film The Lego Ninjago Movie in the role of Master Wu and played a shop owner in Han Jie's fantasy film Namiya.

Musical career

Chan and Qin Hailu singing in Shanghai in 2006.

Chan was instructed in singing while at the Peking Opera School in his childhood. He started producing records professionally in the 1980s and became a successful singer in Hong Kong and Asia. He has released twenty albums since 1984 and has sung in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese, and English. He is often commissioned to perform his movie songs, which are usually played over the closing credits. Chan's first musical recording was "Kung Fu Fighting Man," a song featured over the end credits of the film The Young Master (1980). The Cantonese song of his & # 34; Story of a hero & # 34; (英雄 故事) (used in the Police Story saga) was selected by the Royal Hong Kong Police and incorporated into their recruitment advertisement in 1994.

Chan provided the voice for the character Shang in the Chinese language release of Walt Disney's animated feature Mulan (1998). She also performed the song "I'll Make a Man Out of You"; for its soundtrack. For the US release, B.D. Wong provided vocals, and Donny Osmond performed the song.

In 2007 Jackie recorded and released "We Are Ready," the official song for the one-year countdown to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Chan also released one of two official albums for the titled Official Album for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games – Jackie Chan's Version, which featured several special guest appearances. She performed the song & # 34; Hard to Say Goodbye & # 34; with Andy Lau, Liu Huan and Wakin Chau at the closing ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Academic career

Chan received an honorary doctorate in Social Sciences in 1996 from Hong Kong Baptist University. In 2009 he received another honorary doctorate from the University of Cambodia and has been awarded an honorary professorship by the College of Savannah Arts and Design in Hong Kong in 2008.

Jackie Chan is currently a faculty member at Hong Kong Polytechnic University's School of Hotel and Tourism Management, where he teaches tourism management. Starting in 2015, he began serving as the dean of the Jackie Chan Academy of Film and Television at the Wuhan Institute of Design and Science.

Personal life

In 1982 Chan married Joan Lin, a Taiwanese actress. His son, singer and actor Jaycee Chan, was born that same year. As a result of an extramarital affair with Chan, Elaine Ng Yi-Lei gave birth to a daughter on January 18, 1999. Chan stated that "he only committed a mistake that many men in the world commit". However, Elaine decided that she would take care of her daughter without Chan's help.

Jackie speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Korean, Japanese, Thai, and American Sign Language. He is an avid soccer fan, supporting the Hong Kong national soccer team, England soccer team, and Manchester City.

He is a co-owner of the Jackie Chan DC Racing team, founded in 2015.

In 2021, Jackie Chan announced that he wanted to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party.

Legacy and Philanthropy

Jackie Chan Star at Hollywood Fame Walk.

Jackie Chan Star along with the palm tracks of her two hands and her signature on Hong Kong Star Avenue.

Making his mark as an actor, director, producer, writer and stunt performer, Jackie Chan had won over the American audience. He is internationally known for his peculiar way of staying balanced in unexpected high-risk situations, such as on chairs, stairs, buildings, windows and endless narrow places; to achieve this he does not use utensils, but simply leaned on his big toe. He is also known for that big smile that always accompanies him in and out of the spotlight. His formula consisted of always having a half-hearted hero (quite the opposite of the common hero of those years, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger) who must save a child or a young woman by always doing their own stunts without using weapons.

Chan did his own action scenes and renounced the use of doubles during filming, which has resulted in him breaking his head countless times, his jaw, his cheek bones, one shoulder, most of his fingers. his hand, an ankle and his nose three times. In his films, it is very common for false takes of the acrobatic cuts that Jackie Chan performed badly during the production of the film to be interspersed during the final credits.

Jackie Chan is regarded today as a master of martial arts and is known to his fans as the King of Kung Fu. He is an ambassador for UNICEF, and also has his own charitable organization, helping people from all over the world, and of course his fans, they send him food, clothes and money (Jackie Chan himself keeps clothes that travel agencies give him as gifts) so that every year when Christmas comes around I can give large amounts of donations and charity.

In 2003 Jackie Chan met the bears of Berlin when he visited the city for several weeks for the filming of the movie Around the World in Eighty Days. There he was photographed with hundreds of Buddy Bears and they made a poster. In a workshop he visited artists from all over the world who were working on the United Buddy Bears project.In 2004 he arranged for the United Buddy Bears circle to visit Hong Kong. At the opening he presented three checks for a total amount of HK$1.43 million to UNICEF and two other children's organizations. Since then, Chan has held drawing contests around the world every year (not only for children and young people) about bears. His wish is that the United Buddy Bears project, which unites nations and in which more than 150 artists from different countries participate, also reaches Taipei to help Taiwan emerge from the current situation of isolation. political.

Filmography