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At 60 years old, Jackie Chan revealed that Chinese Zodiac will be the final film where he performs his own death-defying stunts. After an incredible 50-year career spanning over 100 movies, the kung-fu comedian is starting to slow down. Let’s take a look back at his journey.
10. A Challenging Childhood
Jackie’s parents could easily be characters from one of his films. Before World War II, his father Charles worked as a spy for the Chinese Nationalist government, while his mother Lee-Lee performed on stage and secretly dealt opium. As part of his spy duties, Charles arrested Lee-Lee, then married her. Charles had two sons from a previous marriage, and Lee-Lee had two daughters. To support their growing family, Charles joined the Chinese mafia.
When the communists took control of China in 1949, Charles and Lee-Lee fled to Hong Kong, leaving their four children behind. According to Jackie’s biographer Mabel Cheung, this was common at the time, as many children across mainland China were abandoned due to the communist takeover. Jackie was born five years later and named “Chan Kong-sang,” meaning “born in Hong Kong.” In a shocking turn of events, his parents even tried to sell him to the British doctor who delivered him for $26.
At seven years old, Jackie was sent to a boarding school in Hong Kong while his parents traveled to Australia in search of work. The school day started at 5:00 AM and lasted until midnight. During these long hours, Jackie trained in acrobatics, drama, and martial arts, and received classical music training. Mistakes were met with corporal punishment. Jackie later admitted, "I was beaten every day. I was very angry." Reading and writing were not a part of his curriculum. Though he now speaks and sings in seven languages, Jackie still faces challenges with literacy.
At eight years old, Jackie made his first appearance in the film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar. By the time he finished school in 1971, he had already appeared in several films. He worked as an acrobat and stuntman, even appearing as one of the foes Bruce Lee defeated in Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon.
After Bruce Lee’s passing, promoter Willie Chan cast Jackie as the new Bruce Lee in a series of forgettable films. However, Jackie was determined to carve out his own unique identity in cinema, blending comedy, remarkable athleticism, and martial arts. He found success with the movie Drunken Master. To fully understand his style in this film, it's important to know that the Hong Kong film industry was still fixated on the Bruce Lee formula of striking poses, yelling, defeating the villain, and posing again. Jackie’s revolutionary approach was more fluid, humorous, and at times, a bit silly.
9. A True Perfectionist
We’ve all heard of demanding directors. For example, while directing City Lights, Charlie Chaplin reshot a scene 300 times just to get Virginia Cherrill to hold a rose at the perfect angle. David Fincher is known for his perfectionism, with reports from his film Gone Girl claiming he often does 50 takes per scene. But Jackie Chan has surpassed them all, doing a staggering 2,900 takes for just one 10-minute scene.
Jackie took on the role of director for his 1982 film Dragon Lord. The film opens with an intricate scene in which Jackie and a group of stuntmen play jianzi, a game where players kick a feathered shuttlecock. Originally intended to be the film’s final sequence, Jackie decided to open the movie with this action-packed moment. The competition includes impressive acrobatic stunts, with Jackie performing just one kick. That single kick took hundreds of takes to capture the perfect angle and timing. Guinness World Records even recognized Jackie for setting the record for the most takes for a single scene.
“People say Jackie Chan is slow,” he shared in an interview, discussing the many retakes. “I’ll keep filming until the movement is exactly how I like it. That way, I’m confident my fans will love it too.”
The video above is the trailer for the film. You can catch glimpses of this scene around the three-minute mark.
8. Jackie’s Ultimate Fight Scene
Martial arts fans have their favorite fight scenes: Bruce Lee versus Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon, Jet Li versus Billy Chow in Fist of Legend, or Jen Yu against Yu Shu Lien in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. However, one fight scene often appears on almost every list of the greatest fight sequences ever filmed: the thrilling final showdown in 1984’s Wheels on Meals between Jackie and Benny “The Jet” Urquidez.
Chan is not widely known for his kickboxing skills, so it came as a surprise when he squared off against Urquidez, the undefeated kickboxing champion of the world. Urquidez was the first American to win a karate championship in Japan against a Japanese opponent, earning a massive following in both America and Asia.
During the filming of the fight scene, Urquidez actually struck Chan—either unable or unwilling to pull his punches. Furious, Jackie retaliated with a few blows of his own and challenged Urquidez to have a real exhibition match. Urquidez warned Jackie that, as a professional, he could seriously injure him in such a bout. The rest of the cast and crew began making bets on whether a real fight would break out due to the rising tension.
Urquidez’s nickname, “The Jet,” is not inspired by the famous Elton John song “Bennie and the Jets,” as some have speculated, but from his deadly spinning back kick. One gag in the fight was designed to highlight this move. Urquidez would shove Jackie toward a table with candles, then attempt a spinning heel kick that would miss Jackie but blow out the candles.
“By the time I had to shoot that scene,” Urquidez recalled, “I was so exhausted that I could only blow out one or two of the six candles.” The crew had the idea of using a piece of cardboard to block the frame, allowing someone off-screen to fan the candles out. “Believe it or not,” said Urquidez, “I was able to blow them all out myself.”
The rivalry between Jackie and Urquidez was short-lived, and the two became friends. Urquidez even returned to fight Jackie again in 1988’s Dragons Forever. The exhibition match, however, never took place.
7. The Stunt That Almost Took His Life
Jackie Chan came dangerously close to death while filming a seemingly simple stunt in the 1986 film Armor of God. While shooting in Yugoslavia, he was suffering from jet lag but still managed to perform the stunt—a jump from a wall to a tree branch—flawlessly. However, he wasn’t happy with the shot and decided to try again. On his second attempt, he missed the branch and fell 12 meters (40 feet) onto the rocks below.
Jackie fractured his skull, and a piece of bone drove into his brain tissue, causing internal bleeding and blood to pour from his ears. Emergency surgery saved his life. He still has a plastic plate in his skull to seal the hole, and he partially lost his hearing in his right ear.
(The fall can be seen around the 00:30 mark in the video above.)
6. Bruce Lee Screamed, Jackie Sang
Bruce Lee's signature falsetto yell became iconic, often heard just as he was about to send an opponent spinning across the room. He made that high-pitched scream an unforgettable part of his persona. Jackie, on the other hand, prefers more realistic grunts and yelps of pain. He’s also fond of singing, though he does so at the end of the movie, not during a fight scene.
As previously mentioned, Jackie received singing training while at boarding school. Since 1984, he has released more than 20 albums featuring his songs. Starting in 1980 with his film Young Master, Jackie has sung the theme songs for all his Chinese films over the closing credits. When Disney convinced China to release Mulan, Jackie recorded the Mandarin, Cantonese, and Mainland Chinese versions of “I’ll Make a Man Out of You.”
In a recent interview, Jackie revealed that he is in the process of writing a musical inspired by his early life.
5. Tough but Unyielding
Throughout the years, there seems to be no injury Jackie hasn't endured. He’s broken his nose three times and injured his hands numerous times. He has lost count of how many times his knees have been hurt and now moves with such awkwardness that he seldom performs his own sprints in his films. He's dislocated both his shoulders, pelvis, and sternum. His thighs were crushed between two vehicles. While filming Rumble in the Bronx, he broke his ankle. To keep shooting, he covered his cast with a sock and painted it to look like a sneaker.
Jackie Chan has modeled his comedic style of physicality after the greats like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, even recreating some of their iconic stunts. In 'Project A,' he paid tribute to Lloyd’s legendary clock tower scene from the 1923 classic 'Safety Last.' However, unlike Lloyd, who used stunt doubles to climb the tower (due to his eight fingers) and had a shorter drop to the roof, Jackie took it to the next level by hanging 18 meters (60 feet) high, with only two cloth awnings separating him from the ground below.
Jackie was initially apprehensive about falling from such a height, gripping the clock face until his 'hands gave way.' His fears were not without reason. When he finally dropped, he felt the shot was unsatisfactory. He tried again, only to 'break his nose and injure his neck' in the process.
4. Not A Fan Of Hollywood
As early as 1980, Jackie attempted to break into the American film industry with 'Big Brawl' and later 'The Protector,' but both were commercial failures. 'Big Brawl' was particularly disappointing, considering it was shot in the US and directed by Robert Clouse, who had previously worked with Bruce Lee on 'Enter the Dragon.'
A major issue was that 'Big Brawl' was in English, a language Jackie struggled with (many say his grasp of it hasn’t improved much). Another complication arose from his disagreements with Clouse and 'The Protector' director James Glickenhaus about his fighting style. Both expected Jackie to adopt the American approach, which involved fists, feet, and occasional kicks—a style perfected by Bruce Lee. However, Jackie had already developed his own unique approach, incorporating props and acrobatics into his combat.
Jackie gained creative control with *Rumble in the Bronx*, which was when American audiences began to recognize his unique style. This success was followed by *Rush Hour* in 1998 and *Shanghai Noon* in 2000, both of which were made in America. Despite this, Jackie reportedly *did not enjoy Rush Hour* and would not have agreed to the sequels unless offered a substantial financial incentive.
Jackie has confessed that he doesn’t fully understand American humor, like that of his co-stars Chris Tucker and Owen Wilson. He also has a hard time grasping Hollywood films, criticizing their over-reliance on car chases, technological effects, and predictable plots.
“Even if I work with film icons like George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, I won’t become famous in America,” Jackie remarked. “Look at *Jurassic Park*. Most people can’t recall the names of the lead actors; they remember the dinosaurs and Spielberg’s involvement. But in Asia, everyone comes to see Jackie Chan in a Jackie Chan film. The title or plot doesn’t matter. *Only Jackie Chan can do it*.”
3. Two Additional Guinness World Records
In 2012, Guinness awarded Jackie the title for the most film credits in a single movie. In *Chinese Zodiac*, he took on 15 different roles, including writer, director, lead actor, producer, executive producer, cinematographer, art director, unit production manager, stunt coordinator, prop master, gaffer, stuntman, composer, theme song singer, and even catering coordinator.
Jackie also holds the record for the most career stunts performed by any living stuntman. While no one, including Guinness, has kept an official count of his stunts, considering he has appeared in over 100 films, each with at least a dozen stunts, the total is *likely close to 1,000*.
2. His Personal Stunt Team
During the filming of a fight scene in 1978's *Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow*, a stuntman accidentally *slashed Chan* with a sword that had a sharp edge instead of a blunt one. After this incident, Jackie decided he would only work with stunt partners he knew and trusted. Furthermore, insurance companies—especially in the U.S.—refused to cover either Jackie or his stunt team.
As a result, Jackie established his own stunt team, called “*Sing Kar Pan*” or “Jackie Chan’s Stuntmen Association,” which offers competitive pay and takes care of the team’s insurance. Many of the team’s original members had first met Jackie while he was in boarding school or during his early years in the film industry.
This team often choreographs Jackie’s fight scenes and has received *screen credits* as Action or Assistant Action Directors in at least 28 of his films. While on set, the team works, trains, and lives together, communicating during fight scenes through *grunts*.
1. The Dangerous Stunt That Almost Left Him Paralyzed and Electrocuted
Jackie's 1985 movie, Police Story, has a simple and straightforward title, and that was intentional. He wanted to avoid the typical Hong Kong trend of mimicking titles from his upcoming projects. Up until that time, the Hong Kong film industry hadn't seen a kung-fu cop movie like this one.
The final fight scene takes place in a shopping mall, where Jackie battles seemingly every person in China. He and his foes were hurled through so many windows that the crew jokingly renamed the movie 'Glass Story.' To make the scene more authentic, they used sugar glass, which is twice as thick as stunt glass, leading to multiple injuries among the stunt team.
One stunt had Jackie sliding down a pole four stories high, covered in Christmas lights, to stop a fleeing villain. The catch was they were filming in a real shopping mall that had to reopen the next morning, so Jackie had only one chance to get it right. Unfortunately, the Christmas lights weren't made from sugar or stunt glass, and they were plugged into actual power outlets instead of low-voltage car batteries. To make matters worse, the bottom of the pole wasn't padded properly.
As Jackie slid down the pole, his hands suffered second-degree electrical burns and were viciously cut by the lights. When he landed, he fractured his seventh and eighth thoracic vertebrae and dislocated his pelvis.
+ The Jaw-Dropping 21-Story Slide
When Jackie was asked which stunt frightened him the most, he replied: “Actually, every stunt, I’m terrified.” Yet, one stunt in particular struck fear deep into him—it took two weeks for him to muster the courage to perform it.
In the climax of the otherwise forgettable film Who Am I?, Jackie engages in a fight scene atop the Willemswerf Building in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The front of the building is notably slanted, stretching from the roof to the fourth or fifth floor at a steep 45-degree angle.
Jackie slides down a staggering 21 stories. Not content with merely sliding on his rear, he tumbles, stands up, and even walks down the slope before eventually tumbling forward and sliding head-first. This stunt is widely regarded as one of the most insane—and greatest—feats ever captured on film.
