film anniversaries

There is no action star quite like Jackie Chan, who made his name in the Hong Kong movie industry starting in the late 1970s and developed his own signature style: combining slapstick physical comedy with acrobatics and martial arts, and designing astonishing stunts—all of which he performed himself along with his own handpicked stunt team. His stunt sequences and fight choreography have influenced everything from The Matrix and Kill Bill to the John Wick franchise and Kung Fu Panda (in which he voiced Master Monkey).

Born on April 7, 1954, Chan studied acrobatics, martial arts, and acting as a child at the Peking Opera School’s China Drama Academy and became one of the Seven Little Fortunes. Those skills served him well in his early days as a Hong Kong stuntman, which eventually landed him a gig as an extra and stunt double on Bruce Lee’s 1972 film, Fist of Fury. He also appeared in a minor role in Lee’s Enter the Dragon (1973).

Initially, Hong Kong producers, impressed by Chan’s skills, wanted to mold him into the next Bruce Lee, but that just wasn’t Chan’s style. Chan found his milieu when director Yuen Woo-ping cast him in 1978’s kung fu comedy Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and gave Chan creative freedom over the stunt work. It was Drunken Master, released that same year, that established Chan as a rising talent, and he went on to appear in more than 150 movies, becoming one of Hong Kong’s biggest stars.

Chan struggled initially to break into Hollywood, racking up commercial misses with 1980’s The Big Brawl and 1985’s The Protector. He had a minor role in 1981’s hit comedy, The Cannonball Run, and while it didn’t do much to raise his US profile, he did adopt that film’s clever inclusion of bloopers and outtakes during closing credits. It’s now one of the trademark features of Jackie Chan films, beloved by fans.

By the mid 1990s, Chan had amassed a substantial cult following in the US, thanks to the growing availability of his earlier films in the home video market, and finally achieved mainstream Hollywood success with Rumble in the Bronx (1995) and Rush Hour (1998). In his later years, Chan has moved away from kung fu comedies toward more dramatic roles, including the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid.

Look, nobody watches classic Jackie Chan movies for the plot, complex characterizations, or the dubbing (which is often hilariously bad). We’re here to gasp in admiration at the spectacular fight choreography and jaw-dropping stunts, peppered with a generous helping of slapstick humor. His gift for turning ordinary objects into makeshift weapons is part of his unique style, which I like to call Found Object Foo. Who could forget the hilarious chopsticks duel and “emotional kung-fu” (eg, fighting while crying or laughing to unmask an opponent’s weaknesses) in 1979’s The Fearless Hyena? Chan even inspired the entire parkour movement.

Chan has broken multiple fingers, toes, and ribs over the course of his long career, not to mention both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, and ankle. He has a permanent hole in his skull from one near-fatal injury. And he did it all for our entertainment. The least we can do is honor him on his 71st birthday. You’ll find our top 10 Jackie Chan films listed below in chronological order, spanning 30 years.

Drunken Master (1978)

In Drunken Master, Chan portrays a fictional version of legendary Chinese martial artist/folk hero Wong Fei-Hung, who undergoes strict, punishing training under the tutelage of another legend, Beggar So (Yuen Liu-Tin), aka the Drunken Master because he practices a martial art called “Drunken Boxing.” Fei-Hung chafes at the training initially, but after a humiliating defeat in a fight against the villain, Yim Tit-sam (Hwang Jang-lee, a specialist in Taekwondo), he devotes himself to learning the martial art.

Naturally we’re going to get a final showdown between Fei-Hung and his nemesis, Tit-Sam, aka “Thunderfoot” or “Thunderleg,” because of his devastating “Devil’s Kick.” Fei-Hung is able to match his rival’s kicks, but falters again when he comes up against Tit-Sam’s infamous “Devil’s Shadowless Hand.” That’s because Fei-Hung refused to learn a crucial element of the Hung Ga fighting system because he thought it was too “girly.” He ends up inventing his unique version of the technique (“Drunken Miss Ho”) to win the day. These are all fictitious moves that are nonetheless enormously fun to watch—even though Chan nearly lost an eye after taking a blow to the brow ridge in one scene.

Project A (1983)

This film marks the official debut of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and co-stars Chan’s longtime martial arts buddies, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, both major stars in their own right. They were known as the “Three Dragons” in the 1980s. Chan plays Sergeant Dragon Ma, a police officer battling both pirates and gangsters in Hong Kong, and corruption within his own law enforcement ranks. Hung plays a street informant named Fei (or Fats), who tips off Dragon to an illegal gun deal, while Biao plays an inspector and the nephew of the police captain, Hong Tin-Tsu. The three team up to take down the pirates and gangsters and restore integrity to the force.

There’s a lot of delightful slapstick stunt work in Project A, reminiscent of the work of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, but apparently Chan never saw either man’s films before developing his signature style. (In 1987’s Project A Part 2, Chan does pay direct homage to Keaton’s most famous stunt from Steamboat Bill, Jr.) The highlight is Chan hanging off a clock tower (a la Lloyd) 60 feet above the ground and falling backward through a canopy. Ever the perfectionist, Chan insisted on an additional two takes of the dangerous stunt until he was satisfied he’d gotten it exactly right.

Wheels on Meals (1984)

Hung and Biao joined Chan again for 1984’s Wheels on Meals, with Chan and Biao playing Chinese cousins running a food truck in Barcelona. They get snared into helping their private investigator friend Moby (Hung) track down kidnappers intent on capturing a young woman named Sylvia (Lola Forner), who turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish count.

There’s an exciting raid of the villains’ castle that involves scaling the castle walls, but the undisputed highlight of the film is the showdown between Chan and professional kickboxing champion Benny “the Jet” Urquidez, widely regarded as one of the best martial arts fight sequences on film. Both Chan and Urquidez exchange kicks and blows with dazzling speed. At one point, Urquidez lets loose a kick so fast that the resulting wake blows out a row of candles. (You can see it in the clip above; it’s not a trick.) And throughout, one gets Chan’s trademark physical comedy, even taking a moment to rest on a chair to catch his breath before the next round of blows.

Police Story (1985)

Police Story introduced Chan as Hong Kong Police detective Ka-Kui “Kevin” Chan and launched one of the actor’s most popular trilogies. Kevin joins an undercover mission to arrest a well-known crime lord and through a complicated series of events, ends up being framed for murdering a fellow police officer. Now a fugitive, he must track down and capture the crime lord to clear his name—defeating a horde of evil henchmen and saving his girlfriend, May (Maggie Cheung), in the process.

The film is noteworthy for its many elaborately orchestrated stunt scenes. For instance, during a car chase, Chan finds himself hanging off a double-decker bus with nothing but the hooked end of a metal umbrella. (An earlier wooden umbrella prop kept slipping off the bus.) The climactic battle takes place in a shopping mall, and the stunt team broke so many glass panels that the film was dubbed “Glass Story” by the crew. The finale features Chan sliding down a pole covered in strings of electric lights that exploded as he descended. Chan suffered second-degree burns on his hands as well as a dislocated pelvis and back injury when he landed.

Armour of God (1986)

Of all the death-defying stunts Chan performed over hundreds of films, the one that came the closest to killing him—while shooting Armour of God—was relatively mundane. Chan was simply jumping off a ledge onto a tree, but the branch broke, and he crashed to the ground, hitting his head on a rock. His skull was cracked, with a bit of bone penetrating part of his brain, an injury that took eight hours of surgery to repair, followed by a long recovery that delayed production of the film. Chan has a permanent hole in his skull and suffered partial hearing loss in his right ear.

Chan stuck with tradition and showed the footage of the accident in the ending credits of this Indiana-Jones style adventure film. His daring base jump off a cliff—after setting off a series of explosives in a cave to take out a monastic cult—onto the top of a hot air balloon that closes the film was done in two stages. Since Chan had no BASE jumping experience, he jumped onto the balloon by skydiving off a plane. The crew rigged him up with a wire to get a shot of him “jumping” off the cliff.

Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)

If the second installment of this trilogy was largely dismissed as mediocre “filler” in Chan’s expansive oeuvre, the third film, Supercop, ranks as one of his best. Kevin Chan returns for another undercover assignment to take down a drug cartel led by kingpin Khun Chaibat (Kenneth Tsang), and finds himself paired with Chinese Interpol officer Jessica Yang, played by a young Michelle Yeoh (credited as Michelle Kwan). This does not please Kevin’s longtime girlfriend, May (Maggie Cheung), who ends up blowing his cover and getting taken hostage by Chaibat and his wife (Josephine Koo) because of her jealousy.

May might be a bit irritating, but Yeoh’s Yang is pure dynamite, matching Chan’s prowess in a series of fight scenes and gamely performing her own stunts—including riding a motorbike onto a moving train (see clip above), where she and Chan battle the bad guys while dodging helicopter blades. (Yeoh had a narrow escape of her own during an earlier stunt when she fell into oncoming traffic, suffering only minor injuries.) Special shoutout to Bill Tung, reprising his role as Kevin’s superintendent, “Uncle” Bill Wong, who at one point appears in drag as Kevin’s aging grandmother in a remote village to keep Kevin’s cover story secure.

Drunken Master II (1994)

Released in the US as The Legend of Drunken Master, this one will always top my list as Jackie Chan’s best film, against some very stiff competition. It works on every level. This is technically not a sequel to the 1978 film, but it does feature Chan playing the same character, Wong Fei-hung. The film opens with Fei-hung getting into a fight all across (and under) a train with a military officer who has mistaken Fei-hung’s box of ginseng for his own box containing the Imperial Seal. The British consul wants to smuggle the seal out of China, with the help of a group of local thugs. Fei-hung finds himself embroiled in efforts to retrieve the seal and keep it in China where it belongs.

Fei-hung is a fan of Drunken Boxing, and his father disapproves of this and other screwups, kicking his son out of the house. We are treated to an amusing scene in which an intoxicated Fei-hung drowns his sorrows and sings an improvised song, “I Hate Daddy”—right before being attacked by the thugs and soundly defeated, since he’s too tipsy even for Drunken Boxing. (The trick is to be just inebriated enough.)

But Fei-hung gets his revenge and saves the day in a literal fiery showdown against the consul’s chief enforcer, John (taekwondo master Ken Lo). This is Chan’s physical comedy at its best: Drunken Boxing requires one to execute precise martial arts moves while remaining loose and being slightly off-balance. The stunts are equally impressive. At one point in the finale, Chan falls backward into a bed of hot coals (see clip above), scrambling to safety, before chugging industrial alcohol and blowing flames at his attackers wielding red-hot pokers.

Rush Hour (1998)

Chan finally made his big North American mainstream breakthrough with 1995’s Rumble in the Bronx, which grossed $76 million worldwide, but if we’re choosing among the actor’s US films, I’d pick 1998’s Rush Hour over Rumble for inclusion on this list. Hong Kong Detective Lee (Chan) comes to Los Angeles to help negotiate the return of a Chinese consul’s kidnapped daughter, Soo-Yung (Julia Hsu), to whom he once taught martial arts. He’s paired with LAPD Det. James Carter (Chris Tucker), who is supposed to keep Lee occupied and out of the way while the “real” cops handle the investigation. Wacky hijinks ensue as the two gradually learn to work together and ultimately save the day.

Sure, the decades of injury and advancing age by this point have clearly taken their toll; Chan moves more slowly and performs fewer stunts, but his fighting skills remain world-class. While Rush Hour grossed an impressive $244 million worldwide and spawned two (subpar) sequels, it was not a critical favorite; nor was it among Chan’s favorites, who criticized the dearth of action and his English, admitting he often had no idea what Tucker was saying. The two nonetheless have good onscreen chemistry, with a solid supporting cast, and it all adds up to an entertaining film.

Shanghai Noon (2000)

Chan found an even better match when he co-starred with Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon, best described as a “buddy Western” action/adventure. Chan plays Chon Wang (as in John Wayne), a Chinese Imperial guard who comes to the American West to rescue the kidnapped Chinese princess Pei-Pei (Lucy Liu). He ends up bonding with a bumbling, rakishly charming outlaw named Roy O’Bannon (Wilson), who agrees to help find the princess with the ulterior motive of stealing some of the gold being offered as ransom. Since they are also accidental fugitives, they must elude a posse led by the sadistic Marshall Nathan Van Cleef (Xander Berkeley).

Both Chan and Wilson’s comedic talents are on brilliant display here, with plenty of creative fight choreography and set stunt pieces to keep hardcore fans happy. The script is clever, the supporting cast is excellent, and the pacing never lags. If you’re keen to make it a double feature, the 2003 sequel, Shanghai Knights, brings Chon Wang and Roy to jolly old England to recover a stolen Imperial Seal and foil a plot against the British throne. Granted, it’s not as good as its predecessor, but the Chan/Wilson chemistry still makes it work.

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

The Forbidden Kingdom is a fantasy film in the wuxia genre that features not just Chan, but his fellow martial arts film legend, Jet Li, for their first on-screen pairing. A young man in Boston, Jason (Michael Angarano), who loves wuxia movies, finds a mysterious golden staff in a local Chinatown pawn shop that transports him to a village in ancient China. He is attacked by soldiers keen to get the staff but is saved by an inebriated traveling scholar named Lu Yan (Chan), a reference to one of the Eight Immortals mentioned in the Drunken Master films.

The magical staff turns out to be the key to releasing the mythical Monkey King, imprisoned by his rival the Jade Warlord. Jason’s presence could fulfill an ancient prophecy of a Seeker who will use the staff to free the Monkey King. Li plays the Silent Monk, who teams up with Jason, Lu Yan, and a young woman known as the Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei) to fulfill the prophecy. The Forbidden Kingdom is a visual feast, featuring stunning fight choreography and production design in the wuxia tradition, as well as an impressive, highly stylized fight scene between Li (tai chi) and Chan (Drunken Boxing).