Jackie Chan

 Jackie Chan Bio

Jackie Chan was born in 1954 on Victoria Peak, Hong Kong, as Jackie Chan Kong Sang (meaning "born in Hong Kong") to Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, refugees from the Chinese Civil War. He was dubbed Pao Pao (Chinese: literally meaning "Cannonball") because he was forever rolling around as an baby. Since his parents worked for the French ambassador to Hong Kong, Chan spent his constructive years inside the grounds of the ambassador's residence in the Victoria Peak territory.

Jackie Chan attended the Nah-Hwa elementary school on Hong Kong Island, where he failed his first year, afterward his parents recalled him from the school. In 1960, his father emigrated to Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia to work as head chef for the American embassy, and Chan was sent off to the Chinese Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School run by Master Yu Jim Yuen.

Jackie Chan trained strictly for the next 10 years, excelling in martial arts and tumbling. He eventually joined the 7 Little Fortunes, a performance group made up of the school's best pupils, gaining the stage name Yuen Lo in homage to his master. Chan became close friends with companion group members Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, the 3 of them afterward to be known as the Three Brothers or Three Dragons.

At the age of eight, he came out with a few of his fellow "Little Fortunes", in the movie Big and Little Wong Tin Bar (1962), with Li Li Hua acting as his mother. Jackie Chan appeared with Li again the following year, in The beloved Eterne (1963) and had a small function in King Hu's 1966 flick, Come Drink with Me. After an appearance as an extra in another King Hu movie, A Touch of Zen, Chan led off his adult career in the movie industry. At the age of seventeen, he worked as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee movies Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon under the stage name Chen Yuen Long. He received his 1st starring role later on that year, in Little Tiger of Canton, which received a limited release in Hong Kong in 1973.

Jackie Chan linked up with his parents in Canberra in 1976, where he in brief attended Dickson College and worked as a construction worker. A fellow constructor named Jack accepted Chan under his wing, earning Chan the nickname of "Little Jack" which was later abbreviated to "Jackie".to boot, Chan altered his Chinese name to Fong Si Lung, since his father's original family name was Fong.

Film career

The 1978 movie Drunken Master brought Jackie Chan into the mainstream.

Early exploits: 1976 "1980

In 1976, Jackie Chan received a telegram from Willie Chan, a filmmaker in the Hong Kong movie industry who had been impressed with Jackie's stuntwork. Willie Chan offered him an acting character in a film directed by Lo Wei, who planned to model him after Bruce Lee with the movie New Fist of Fury. His stage name was altered to Sing Lung (Chinese: literally "become the dragon") to accent his similarity to Bruce Lee, whose stage name was Lei Siu Lung (Chinese: meaning "Little Dragon"). The movie was a disoponitment because Jackie Chan was not used to to Lee's martial arts style. Despite the movies failure, Lo Wei continued making films with similar themes, resulting in little improvement at the ticket office.

Jackie Chan's 1st major push through was the 1978 movie Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, shot though he was loaned to Seasonal Film corp under a two-picture deal. Under director Yuen Woo Ping, Chan was allowed complete freedom over his stunt work. The picture planted the comedic kung fu genre, and proved to be a breath of fresh air for the Hong Kong audience. Chan then starred in Drunken Master, which finally propelled him to mainstream success.

Upon Jackie Chan's come back to Lo Wei's studio, Lo tried to copy the comedic approach of Drunken Master, developing Half a Loaf of Kung Fu and Spiritual Kung Fu.] He also gave Chan the chance to co-direct Fearless Hyena with Kenneth Tsang. When willy Chan left the company, he counseled Jackie to decide for himself whether to or not to continue with Lo Wei. During the shooting of Fearless Hyena Part II, Jackie Chan broke his contract and linked up with Golden Harvest, motivating Lo to pressure Chan with triads, blaming Willie for his star's deviation. The conflict was adjudicated with the help of fellow actor and director Jimmy Wang Yu, allowing for Chan to stay with Golden Harvest.

Success of the action comedy genre: 1980"1987

The movie Police Story, dubbed "Glass Story" for its stunt work, is set in a modernistic period.Willie Chan had become Jackie's personal managing director and firm friend, and has continued so for over thirty years. He was implemental in launching Chan's international career, beginning with his 1st forays into the American movie industry in the eighties. His 1st Hollywood movie was Battle Creek Brawl in 1980.  Jackie Chan then played a minor role in the 1981 picture The Cannonball Run, which grossed US$100 million worldwide. In spite of being for the most part ignored by audiences in favour of accomplished American actors like Burt Reynolds, Chan was moved by the outtakes shown at the closing credits, inspiring him to include the same device in his future movies. After the commercial failure of The Protector in 1985, Chan temporarily deserted his attempts to break into the US market, returning his focus to Hong Kong movies.

Back in Hong Kong,  Jackie Chan 's movies set about to reach a greater audience in East Asia, with early winners in the moneymaking Japanese market including The Young Master (1980) and Dragon Lord (1982). Chan produced a amount of action comedy flicks with his opera house school supporters Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. The 3 co-starred collectively for the first time in 1983 in Project A, which won the Best Action Design Award at the 3rd annual Hong Kong Film Awards.Over the following 2 years, the "Three Brothers" appeared in Wheels on Meals and the original Lucky Stars trilogy. In 1985, Chan made the 1st Police Story flick, a US-influenced action comedy in which Jackie Chan executed his own stunts. It was named the "Best film" at the 1986 Hong Kong movie Awards.[Eighteen] In 1987, Chan bet "Asian Hawk", an Indiana Jones-esque persona, in the movie Armour of God. The movie was Chan's greatest domestic box office achiever to date, grossing over HK $thirty-five million.

Applauded sequels and Hollywood breakthrough: 1988"1998

Jackie Chan in his Hollywood breakthrough movie Rumble in the Bronx.In 1988  Jackie Chan  starred alongside Hung and Yuen for the last time up to now, in the movie Dragons Forever. Hung co-directed with Corey Yuen, and the villain in the movie was Yuen Wah, both of whom were fellow graduates of the China Drama Academy.

In the late eighties and early nineties, Jackie Chan starred in a measure of successful sequels commencing with Police Story 2, which won the award for Best Action Choreography at the 1989 Hong Kong movie Awards. This was followed by Armour of God II: Operation Condor, and Police Story 3, for which Chan won the Best Actor Award at the 1993 Golden Horse Film Festival. In 1994,Jackie Chan repeated his role as Wong Fei Hung in Drunken Master 2, which was enrolled in Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies. Another sequel, Police Story four: First Strike, brought more awards and domestic box office success for Chan, but didn't fare as well in foreign markets. Jackie Chan rekindled his Hollywood aspirations in the nineties, but refused early offers to play scoundrels in Hollywood films to deflect being typecast in future roles. For instance, Sylvester Stallone offered him the character of Simon Phoenix, a criminal in the futurist movie Demolition Man. Chan declined and the role was accepted by Wesley Snipes.

Jackie Chan finally succeeded in grounding a foothold in the North American market in 1995 with a worldwide release of Rumble in the Bronx, attaining a cult following in the U.S.A. that was uncommon for Hong Kong film stars. He then co-starred with Chris Tucker in the 1998 sidekick cop action comedy Rush Hour, grossing US$one hundred thirty million in the U.S.A. alone.

Dramatization: 1998"present

Jackie Chan acts as an anti-hero for the first time in Rob-B-Hood: A burglar with gambling troubles.In 1998, Chan released his last film for Golden Harvest, Who Am I?. After leaving Golden Harvest in 1999, he produced Gorgeous, a romantic comedy that centered on personal relationships. Chan then helped produce a PlayStation game in 2000 called Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, to which he lent his voice and executed the motion capture.[Twenty-six] Starting that year, Chan voiced a fictionalized adaptation of himself in the animated series Jackie Chan Adventures, which ran until 2005.
Despite further success with Shanghai Noon in 2000, Rush Hour 2 in 2001 and Shanghai Knights in 2003, Chan became baffled with Hollywood over the limited range of characters and lack of control over the film-making procedure. In response to Golden Harvest's withdrawal from the movie industry in 2003, Chan began his own movie production company, JCE Movies Limited (Jackie Chan Emperor Movies Limited) in association with Emperor Multimedia Group (EMG). His movies have since featured an increasing number of striking scenes while continuing to succeed at the box office; cases include New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005) and Rob-B-Hood (2006).

Jackie Chan's latest release was Rush Hour 3 in August 2007, which performed well at the United States. box office, grossing over US$100 million.However, it performed badly in Hong Kong, grossing only HK$3.5 million during its opening weekend.The shooting of The Forbidden Kingdom, Chan's 1st onscreen collaboration with fellow Chinese actor Jet Li, was completed on August 24, 2007 and the movie is now in post-production.Chan will voice the character of "Master Monkey", in the DreamWorks Animation movie, Kung Fu Panda, scheduled for a May 2008 release, beside stars such as Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie.In addition, he has signed up to assist Anthony Szeto in an consultatory capacity for the writer-director's coming movie Wushu, which is presently in pre-production. The movie will star Sammo Hung and Wang Wenjie as father and son.In November 2007, Chan will begin shooting Shinjuku Incident with director Derek Yee, which sees Chan acquire the character of a Chinese immigrant in Japan.[Thirty-eight] According to his blog, Chan wishes to direct a movie after finishing Shinjuku Incident, something he has not done for a number of years.The movie is anticipated to be the third in the Armour of God series, and has a working title of Armour of God III: Chinese Zodiac.

Stunts

Jackie Chan prepares to slide down the side of a building in New Police Story. Jackie Chan executes most of his own stunts, which are choreographed from the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Since the team's institution in 1983, Chan has used it in all his succeeding films to make choreographing easier, given his understanding of each member's abilities.Chan and his team tackle many of the stunts executed by additional characters in his movies, filming the scenes such that their faces are obscured.

The unsafe nature of his stunts makes it hard for Chan to acquire insurance, especially in the U.S.A., where his stunt work is contractually bounded.Chan holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Stunts By A Living Actor", which emphasises "no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, in which he performs all his own stunts".additionally, he holds an unrecognized record for the most number of takes for a individual shot in a movie, having shot over 2900 retakes for a complex scene involving a badminton game in Dragon Lord.

Jackie Chan has been hurt numerous times trying stunts; many of them have been shown as outtakes or bloopers on the closing credits of his movies. He came closest to dying filming Armour of God, when he fell from a tree and broke his skull, resulting in a permanent hole in his skull. Over the years, Chan has separated his pelvis and broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, breastbone, neck and ribs on many occasions.

Filmography and screen character

Further information:  Jackie Chan filmography
Jackie Chan produced his screen character as a answer to Bruce Lee, and the several imitators who came out before and after Lee's demise. In contrast to Lee's characters, who were commonly stern, virtuously upright heroes, Chan plays well-intentioned, slightly goofy regular guys (frequently at the clemency of their friends, girlfriends or families) who always triumph ultimately in spite of the odds. Despite the success of the Rush Hour series, Chan has declared that he's not a fan of it since he neither appreciates the action shots in the film, nor translates American humour.
In recent years, the ageing Jackie Chan grew sick of being typecast as an action hero, prompting him to act with more emotion in his most previous films.n New Police Story, he depicted a character suffering from alcohol addiction and grieving his murdered colleagues.[49] To further shed the figure of mister. Nice Guy, Chan acted as an anti-hero for the first time in Rob-B-Hood starring as Thongs, a burglar with gambling troubles.

Image and celebrity status

Jackie Chan has picked up worldwide acknowledgement for his acting as, having won a lot of awards including an Innovator Award from the American Choreography Awards and a lifetime achievement award from the Taurus World Stunt Awards.[51] He has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars.Chan is a social icon, having been cited in Ash's song "Kung Fu" as well as in "Jackie Chan" by Frank Chickens, and television shows Celebrity Deathmatch and Family Guy. He has been the inspiration for manga such as Dragon Ball , the character Lei Wulong in Tekken and the fighting-type Pokémon Hitmonchan.

A number of computer games have featured  Jackie Chan . Before Stuntmaster, Chan already had a game of his own, Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, released in 1990 for the PC-Engine and NES. In 1995, Chan was featured in the arcade fighting game Jackie Chan The Kung-Fu Master. In addition, a series of Japanese Jackie Chan games were released on the MSX by Pony, based on several of his films (Project A, Project A 2, Police Story, The Protector and Wheels On Meals).

Jackie Chan is a successful vocalist in Hong Kong and Asia, having begun producing records professionally in the eighties. He often sings the signature tunes of his movies, playing them during the closing credits.[49][58] In 2004, Chan set in motion his own line of clothing, which bears a Chinese dragon logotype and English word "Jackie".

Despite extensive box office success in Hollywood, Chan's American movies have been criticized with respect to the action choreography. Reviewers of Rush Hour two, The Tuxedo, and Shanghai Knights criticised the toning down of Chan's fighting scenes, citing lower intensity compared to his former films.The comedic value of his films is questioned, some critics stated it can be childish at times.

Jackie Chan has forever wanted to be a role model to kids, remaining popular with them due to his good-natured acting style. He's refused to act as villains and has never used the a certain four letter word in his films. Chan's greatest regret in life is not having received proper education, inspiring him to invest in educational institutions around the globe. He funded the construction of the Jackie Chan Science Centre at the Australian National University and the establishment of schools in misfortunate regions of China.

Jackie Chan with Walt Disney favourites during the opening ceremony of Hong Kong Disneyland Chan is a representative for the Government of Hong Kong, appearing in public service announcements. In a Clean Hong Kong commercial message, he inspired the people of Hong Kong to be more considerate with regards to littering, a problem that's been widespread for decades. Moreover, in an ad promoting nationalism, he gave a curt explanation of the March of the Volunteers, the national hymn of the People's Republic of China.[69] When Hong Kong Disneyland unfolded in 2005, Jackie Chan entered in the opening ceremonial occasion.In the U.S.A., Chan appeared beside Arnold Schwarzenegger in a government advertisement to combat piracy and made some other community service announcements with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to encourage people, particularly Asians, to join the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Jackie Chan is a acute philanthropist and a United Nations Children's Fund Goodwill Ambassador, having worked inexhaustibly to champion large-hearted works and campaigns. He's crusaded for conservation, against animal abuse and has promoted catastrophe relief efforts for floods in China and the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.In June 2006, he announced the donation of one-half his assets to charity upon his death, citing his admiration of the effort made by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to aid those in need.

Personal life

In 1982,  Jackie Chan married Lin Feng-Jiao, a Taiwanese actress. The 2 had a boy the same year, vocalist and actor Jaycee Chan.In 1999, Chan all but admitted paternity of a daughter by 1990 Miss Asia Pageant winner Elaine Ng, though there's been no other corroboration of this.