He claims he does it for the money, so that he can finance the films he actually likes to make, as well as fund his considerable charity work. The people who accuse Chan of this are probably right, in that Chan has admitted he does this. Further rubbing salt in wounds is his compliance to Sony's decision to force the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid to bear its original title, rather than the proposed title of The Kung Fu Kid, in spite of the fact that the film is set in China and is about the Chinese martial art of Wushu (aka kung fu). Reportedly advising that the protagonist role in The Forbidden Kingdom, originally intended to be a Chinese-American boy rediscovering his roots, be recast as a kung-fu obsessed white boy is sometimes advanced as evidence for this view. In some parts of the global Asian community, he is also accused of being a sellout to his own culture, pandering to the Western market by repeatedly portraying caricatures of the Chinese man. He has also been accused of selling out his hometown of Hong Kong with his staunch pro-Beijing stance, reducing democratic freedom in Hong Kong. His political stance that Taiwan should reunite with China earns him few friends outside the People's Republic, but he cannot be accused of not putting his money where his mouth is, because this devastates his box-office profits in Taiwan. In the last decade, Chan has been the subject of much controversy in Asia. He also has his own Animated Adaptation, Jackie Chan Adventures. This is a little less surprising when you know that he originally trained for Peking Opera, which features acrobatic fight scenes. " Who Am I? " and " I'll Make a Man Out of You " in Disney's Mulan).
#JACKIE CHAN FILM PROFESSIONAL#
Among his injuries, he has dislocated his pelvis, broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, ankle and ribs on numerous occasions.Ī lesser-known aspect of his career (at least in America) is that he is also a professional singer, having recorded many albums and often performing the theme songs for his movies (ex. This being a man who has run along the edges of skyscrapers and crashed through electrical wires, it was a reminder that he can't be casual about anything he does. His closest brush with death came from a comparatively "safe" stunt in Armour of God when he fell from a tree, fracturing his skull and permanently rupturing one of his eardrums. Needless to say, he's been injured fairly frequently. As he's grown older, despite being one hell of a badass at the age of 67, he understandably has stopped doing 100% of his stunts, partly because he has been told that if he falls on his head one more time, it will kill him, and partly because in the Hollywood system, insurance for the stars is a must and, as aforementioned, he has a little trouble with that. It's a good thing he's been so successful, because he's gone on record in many interviews as saying that no insurance company in the world will give him coverage. and prepare to be amazed! Often involving ambulances. note Again, search on YouTube for Jackie Chan outtakes.
But worry not - Jackie always OK.Īnd in case you don't believe it, there's usually a montage of outtakes over the end credits showing things going wrong while filming. note Though the outtakes show that the saw wasn't running when he rolled over it. If you see him roll artfully over a running circular saw? Yup, actually him. So, if you see his character fall through three awnings onto the street below? Really him. Traditionally, Chan does all his own stunts, and in his days of producing low-budget Hong Kong chop-socky, that was the only way it was ever done.
He reportedly says that he loves action, but hates violence, so rather than setting out to make bone-crunching kung fu, he instead takes heavy inspiration from the physical comedy of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin (being that those were silent films, he was able to watch them without having to worry about the language barrier).