Fuzzy financial schemes, a knack for controversy, and a growing sense of
patriotism: it all adds up to Jackie Chan's diminished presence in American cinema.
At the turn of the 20th century, Jackie Chan fronted two successful franchise-spawning films.
He first appeared alongside Chris Tucker in the 1998 buddy comedy Rush Hour and then with Owen
Wilson in 2000's martial arts/western crossover Shanghai Noon. Rush Hour spawned two sequels,
while Shanghai had one follow-up. But there haven't been any chapters since then,
despite plenty of talk over the last few years.
, MGM confirmed that Shanghai Dawn was in the works, with Jared Hess attached as the
director. But that's pretty much the last we've heard of that project. And then Rush
Hour 4 also appears to be stuck in development hell. Chris Tucker mentioned it during a 2018
appearance on the podcast The Plug, but nothing concrete has really happened since then. During
the 2022 Red Sea International Film Festival, Chan mentioned that talks were happening. But
seeing as Rush Hour 3 came out all the way back in 2007, we'd advise not holding your breath.
In 2016, Jackie Chan was given an honorary Oscar for his achievements in the film world. This was
the first time he'd ever been recognized with a trophy from the Academy. And he
maybe could've netted a competitive award seven years later if his schedule hadn't been so busy.
As it turns out, Chan was the first person that directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert had
in mind for their Best Picture-winning Everything Everywhere All At Once. When
the martial arts icon was forced to turn the project down due to other commitments,
the filmmakers decided to gender-flip the character and cast Michelle Yeoh instead.
Yeoh would go on to earn an Oscar for her performance in the film — one of
seven Oscars the movie picked up. She and Chan are actually long-time friends,
and she revealed to CNN that he sent her a cheeky message in the wake of her nomination.
"I remember Jackie texting me and saying, 'Hey, congratulations! You
know you realize that your boys came to see me first.' And I'm like, 'Thank you bro!"
While Jackie Chan has been mostly absent from American cinemas lately,
he's still a big screen regular in the Far East. If you take a close look at
his recent filmography, you'll realize that he's actually just as busy as ever.
In 2020, he fronted the action-adventure flick Vanguard. The following year,
he cameoed in the dramedy All U Need Is Love, took a supporting role in
the rom-com Good Night Beijing, and voiced the dragon Long in the Mandarin dub of Wish
Dragon. And then he has four Chinese projects due to be released in 2023.
At the Beijing premiere of the stuntman drama Ride On,
Chan explained why he turned his back on his American Dream. As he put it,
"I went there, but nobody said my fighting was good. Nobody cared about my fighting scenes. So,
I gave up [on] Hollywood. Today, I am proud of my decision. It was not that
I wanted to go to Hollywood, but that Hollywood wanted me."
Chan also advised any budding Chinese action heroes to forget
about hopping to the States, as he added,
"People won't write scripts for you. Stay in China
and develop your abilities. When you become successful, people will come to find you."
It's fair to say that Jackie Chan's politics have changed since his rise to Hollywood fame. In 1989,
he aligned himself with the Tiananmen Square protests as a performer at the
Concert for Democracy in China. But then in 2021,
he revealed that he wanted to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party.
Nowadays, Chan has become just as renowned for his propaganda efforts as his film career. While
appearing at a China Film Association-backed symposium in 2021, he reportedly said,
"I just think the Chinese Communist Party is really so magnificent. What the Party says,
what it promises, it doesn't need 100 years to accomplish — it will
definitely accomplish it in just a few decades. I want to be a Party member!"
"I can tell you, I'm proud to be a Chinese."
Just two years earlier, Chan spoke out against protests over a Hong Kong
anti-extradition bill. In an interview with China's state broadcaster CCTV,
he said that he was heartbroken and worried about the unrest. He also pledged his support
to a campaign on social media designed to prevent the desecration of the national flag.
Jackie Chan used to be known as one of Hollywood's nice guys. But in 2015,
he completely obliterated his reputation with Never Grow Up — an extremely candid memoir
that featured confessions about extramarital affairs, hard drinking, and domestic abuse.
Translated into English three years later, Never Grow Up saw Chan admit to sleeping with
a woman he referred to as simply "Number Nine" in a club's toilet cubicle. He also
discussed getting behind the wheel while inebriated during his rise to fame, writing,
"I drunk drove all the time. In the morning, I'd crash my Porsche, then in the evening,
I'd total a Mercedes-Benz. All day long, I went around in a haze."
But perhaps the most shocking revelation involved Chan's son Jaycee, as the actor
recalled picking up his then-two-year-old boy and flinging him across the living
room. Luckily, Jaycee landed on a sofa, but, as his father admitted,
"With the amount of force I used, if he'd hit the back or armrests,
it could have been quite serious."
Although you might not see Jackie Chan on the big screen very often these days,
chances are you still might hear his voice. While he seems reluctant to take on any
live-action roles in Hollywood, he's happy to lend his talents to animated features.
In 2016, Chan reprised his role as Master Monkey in the third installment of the Kung
Fu Panda franchise. Soon afterwards, he played Mr. Feng in 2017's The Nut Job 2:
Nutty by Nature, and then Master Wu in The Lego Ninjago Movie that same year.
He's also set to voice the wise rat Splinter in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem,
which is due out in August 2023. In a 2017 interview with The Movie Mensch, Chan explained,
"Sometimes with martial arts you can have limits. In cartoons,
you're not limited with martial arts. You can do anything and everything and you
never get old. They have good messages to children — to respect everything."
"It is the highest level that you can achieve as a ninja."
In 2013, Jackie Chan risked alienating much of his Western fan base when he described the
United States as the most corrupt country in the world. He made the comments in response to the
international outcry over China's censorship of a major newspaper, telling a Hong Kong TV network,
"The real success [of the New China] has been made in the past dozen of years. Our country's
president also admits they have the corruption problem, and some other stuff, but we are making
progress. What I can see is our country is continuously making progress and learning."
Chan then switched his focus to the U.S., as he blamed the country for
the recent worldwide financial crisis. And this wasn't the first time that Chan
had courted controversy for similar views. He once described Taiwanese democracy as, quote,
"the biggest joke in the world." And on the topic of Chinese censorship of his movies, he argued,
"Chinese people need to be controlled, otherwise they will do whatever they want."
Yet another time where Jackie Chan went out of his way to make himself
Mr. Unpopular happened when he essentially dismissed an
entire generation of actors as lazy. During a 2022 interview, he remarked,
"I won't say who it is, but lately, our actors don't want to sweat,
can't do wire stunts, and can't do dangerous things. They want
to show action and look good, yet they can't take hardship."
Chan went on to chastise actors who arrive to set last and leave first,
declaring that the rise of the entourage has enabled the younger crowd to live a
too-contented life. He also left plenty of people guessing when he
singled out one particular high-maintenance co-star in another interview. He revealed,
"After shooting just two scenes, everyone would tell her that she
worked hard. What hard work? That wasn't hard work at all!"
After years away from American cinema screens, Jackie Chan starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in
2017's The Foreigner — an adaptation of a Stephen Leather novel from 1992. Alas,
the rather underwhelming response to the action thriller may have
further motivated Chan to instead concentrate on the Far East market.
The movie grossed only $34.4 million domestically,
just short of its reported $35 million budget. It got so-so reviews,
though some critics were especially harsh. Simon Abrams of RogertEbert.com opined,
"Chan may still be figuring out what he can and can't do in his old age. But dreck like
The Foreigner should be swiftly crossed off his bucket list, and never revisited."
You could say that the writing was on the wall when the movie's trailer was released,
as fans were upset that the Hong Kong-born Chan had been cast as a Vietnamese character. Overall,
The Foreigner plainly suffered a tepid reaction that didn't do anyone's career any favors.
"Who killed my daughter?!"
"I'm sorry! I truly don't know yet!"
Jackie Chan's reputation took a further hammering in 2016 when he became embroiled
in a tax evasion scandal. He was named alongside the likes of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar,
golfer Nick Faldo, and chess master Bobby Fischer in the Panama Papers — a series of documents that
revealed that various high-profile figures were using offshore accounts to obscure their wealth.
Chan was reported to have been linked to no fewer than six different offshore companies,
all of which were based in the British Virgin Islands. The actor's tax affairs
were also rumored to be behind the seizing of two Beijing luxury apartments four years
later. The properties, which Chan and his family resided in for more than ten years,
were reportedly later auctioned off with a starting valuation of approximately $14 million.
If you're a fan of The Expendables movies, you might wonder why Chan never appeared in any of
them. After all, the franchise has featured Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
and pretty much every other major action star of the past four decades. As it turns out,
Chan's absence is not for want of an invitation.
In a 2014 interview with Den of Geek, Chan revealed that he had
indeed been approached to star in several installments but that he
essentially didn't want to share the screen with his peers. As he put it,
"This morning I did hear [...] Sly [Stallone] wants me for Expendables 4. I said, 'Okay.'
Because they already asked me to be in two and three, but I refused. Well, I didn't refuse,
but I said, 'Sly, can't we just do you and me? Not [...] a bunch of people and me only
coming out for five minutes.' Because then the audience is, 'Oh!' And then I'm gone."
And this wasn't the first time that Chan had turned down Stallone. Back in the early 90s,
he'd rejected an offer to star as the criminal Simon Phoenix in Demolition Man, as he wasn't
comfortable with the idea of playing a villain. The role eventually went to Wesley Snipes.
Jackie Chan was arguably one of the most famous actors in the world back in the early 2000s
thanks to his martial arts work and starring roles in a string of major hits. But while he
used to thrive on his celebrity status, he now claims that he's no longer interested in being
on screen for the sake of being famous. In a 2017 interview with China Daily, he admitted,
"At first I made films to earn money. Then, I wanted fame. Now, I think neither is important."
Chan also insisted that he's now more concerned with the public's response to a film than any
critical reaction. Of course, nowadays he can afford to be a little relaxed when it comes to
money. In 2016, he was named as the second highest-paid actor in the world by Forbes,
so he doesn't exactly need the big paychecks as much as he used to.
"As always, we asking the question, where Jackie Chan at right now?"
"I wanna know where he at!"