Jackie Chan, born Chan Kong-sang in Hong Kong on 7 April 1954, was sent as a boy to Yu Jim-yuen's China Drama Academy, which opened in 1961, where he took the stage name Yuen Lo and trained in Peking opera, tumbling and martial arts. Alongside Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Yuen Kwei and Yuen Wah he was one of the Seven Little Fortunes, a troupe that performed together and forged the discipline he later relied on. He entered the industry as a stuntman in 1971 and worked as a double and stunt player on Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). In 1976 director Lo Wei gave him the lead in New Fist of Fury, hoping to turn him into a second Bruce Lee, but the results were modest and he was even lent out to other studios. The turning point came in 1978: in Yuen Woo-ping's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, Chan blended slapstick, acrobatics and kung fu into a mischievous young fighter, and both films were hits that opened a new path for kung-fu comedy. In the 1980s he formed his own stunt team, the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, training a corps of stuntmen and creating a crew system that let dangerous action be designed and executed systematically. Project A (1983) and the Police Story series from 1985, which he also directed, featured him performing his own high-risk stunts, from a clock-tower fall to a slide down a shopping-mall atrium, becoming hallmarks of Hong Kong action cinema; he was hospitalised for injuries many times. During the filming of Armour of God in Yugoslavia in 1987 he suffered a near-fatal head injury but returned to performing his own stunts after recovering. Miracles (1989) won him Best Action Choreography at the 9th Hong Kong Film Awards. He took Best Actor at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards for Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992) and again for Crime Story (1993). Drunken Master II (1994) revisited the drunken-fist style, and in The Myth (2005) he acted, produced and choreographed. Rumble in the Bronx (1995) opened the North American market, and Rush Hour (1998) made him a Hollywood leading man; he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002. Chinese Zodiac (2012) brought him Best Action Choreography at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Awards in 2013, and in 2016 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave him an Honorary Academy Award, the first Chinese actor to receive one. He also sang the end-title song of Once Upon a Time in China II, and has long taken part in charity work and anti-drug campaigns. In The Karate Kid (2010) and Dragon Blade (2015) he served as producer or action director as well as star, remaining active on the international stage.
Jackie Chan fused acrobatics, comedy and practical stunts into a distinctive language that came to define Hong Kong action cinema. That style and his willingness to perform his own dangerous stunts helped carry Hong Kong films into the global market. His success in Hollywood opened doors for later Chinese-language actors abroad. The stunt-team system he built, the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, also shaped how a generation of action choreographers and stuntmen were trained.
Achievements
- 1978 · Established his acrobatic kung-fu comedy style with Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master.
- 1992 · Won Best Actor at the 29th Golden Horse Awards for Police Story 3: Super Cop.
- 2016 · Received an Honorary Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.