The man known as Jackie Chan is one of the biggest and most badass movie stars ever,
and the first to bridge the gap between Hong Kong action cinema and big-budget American
movies.
Chan might be past 60, but he's still putting his life on the line to thrill audiences.
Read the womb
Though it may seem like the big-screen legend has been around forever, Jackie Chan was born
Chan Kong-sang in April 1954.
Nothing weird about that… until you realize he was supposed to be born in January of that
year.
Yup, he hung out in his mother's womb for a full 12 months before a British doctor had
to surgically remove him.
At the time of his forced birth, he weighed 12 pounds.
His mother nicknamed him Pao-Pao, or "cannonball."
"My wife had such a difficult time delivering him.
Afterward, she was totally exhausted.
The nurse brought the baby in, saying, "Aw, he's so cute, just like a cannonball."
Nevertheless, that kind of medical procedure isn't cheap, and Chan's parents couldn't afford
it; thus, they tried to sell their baby to the doctor who delivered him.
The doctor said no obviously.
According to Chan's memoir, his parents gathered the money from their friends and needed a
decade to pay them all back.
Learning from legends
When Jackie Chan was 7 years old, he was enrolled and boarded at the China Drama Academy, where
he was taught acting and singing in preparation for a career in the Peking Opera.
It was there that Chan lived and trained for the next ten years, eventually forming an
acrobatic troupe with some classmates called the Seven Little Fortunes.
Upon leaving school, Chan used the group to gain his first roles in Hong Kong movies.
He and the Seven Little Fortunes were extras and stuntmen in Enter the Dragon and Fists
of Fury, two of the most famous and popular movies ever made by Bruce Lee.
Chan even got to spar on-camera with the screen legend.
"Suddenly, my eyes all black because he just — one stick, right here, on my head."
Picky with voice parts
While a star in Asia since the 1970s, Jackie Chan wasn't a mainstream star in the U.S.
until the release of Rumble in the Bronx in 1996.
Before that, he helped bring American movies to Asia: for example, he provided the Mandarin
language voice acting of the Beast for the Chinese dub of Beauty and the Beast.
Chan has since done voice work in the English-language releases of other major animated movies, one
notable example being his portrayal of Master Monkey in the Kung Fu Panda movies.
However, you might be surprised to hear of the one place he didn't lend his voice: the
cartoon series Jackie Chan Adventures.
Although he appeared in live-action bumpers for the show, the cartoon version of Jackie
Chan is voiced by James Sie
"But I don't know anything about Children!"
who also, incidentally, took over as Master Monkey in the TV series
spinoff of Kung Fu Panda.
To make things even more confusing, the character of Jade Chan, Jackie's fictional niece on
the series, was voiced by Stacie Chan, Jackie Chan's real-life niece.
No stranger to danger
After starring in dozens of martial arts and action movies in which he's done his own stunts,
Jackie Chan has sustained a number of injuries.
So much so that in 2013, his movie Chinese Zodiac was promoted in Japan with a poster
that consisted of an image of Chan's body with arrows pointing to all of his injured
body parts.
Among the injuries Chan has suffered in the pursuit of entertainment:
On Drunken Master, he damaged a bone behind his eyebrow, and it nearly blinded him.
On City Hunter, he dislocated his right shoulder.
On The Armour of God, Chan fell out of a tree and suffered a skull fracture, a bone cave-in
behind the ear, and bleeding into his brain.
During surgery, bone chips were removed from his head.
"Two fingers.
"I'm bowling with Jackie Chan."
"Oh my god — Yes!
Yes!
Yes!"
He broke his breastbone on Armour of God II.
During the filming of The Accidental Spy, he broke his tailbone and was temporarily
paralyzed.
Oh, and he's broken his nose four separate times: once while making The Young Master,
once on Project A, once on Miracles, and once on Mr. Nice Guy.
Ouch we'll never complain about a stubbed toe again!
"Broken, broken, teeth gone.
Jaws, cheek.
Broken, broken, broken.
Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack."
The 1,000th time's the charm
Directors may require a lot of takes to get a scene the way they want it.
In one example of this borderline abusive practice, Stanley Kubrick infamously required
Shelley Duvall to film one scene in The Shining 127 times.
By that logic, the most sadistic director that Jackie Chan has ever worked with is … himself.
While directing and starring in the 1982 movie Dragon Lord, a sequence in which characters
play "jianzi" a Chinese sport similar to hacky sack, but with a weighted, badminton-style
shuttlecock just didn't look right to director Chan.
It's been reported that the scene took 2,900 takes, but it probably didn't take that many.
The book Kung Fu Masters places the number over 190, and other estimates come in at over
1,000.
Either way, Chan was dedicated to the shot.
Tough love
Jackie Chan's a movie star, which means he's rich.
He's amassed a fortune of more than $350 million.
In addition to earning salary and box office percentages from his films, he's owned a chain
of movie theaters and a Segway dealership.
And when he dies, a lot of that is going to charity.
But his son, Jaycee Chan who was convicted on drug charges in 2015 stands to inherit
exactly none of that.
In 2011, Chan publicly mentioned that he won't leave his fortune behind to his son, remarking:
"If he is capable, he can make his own money.
If he is not, then he will just be wasting my money."
It seems like there's a little more to the story than that — especially considering
the fact that their relationship isn't without its past bumps in the road.
Jackie once even admitted that he had beaten Jaycee when he was a child, admitting that
he was not a "model father."
But it looks like threats of violence are off the table these days…
"Wearing the white shoes, running around — because he don't wash his own shoes.. socks!"
"Do you give him a shot?"
"No, I can't — he'll sue me!"
Polarizing politics
While Jackie Chan boasts fans from every corner of the globe, he's still very loyal to his
home nation of China's political system of communism.
In fact, he's way more politically outspoken then most of his fans probably realize.
He's even opened up about his opinions on the American way of life on more than one
occasion.
In 2013, he said:
"What I can see is [China] continuously making progress and learning.
If you talk about corruption, the entire world, the United States, has no corruption?
[It's] the most corrupt in the world."
But his opinions don't end with the US.
In 2009, he talked about the dangers of too much freedom in China-controlled Taiwan, saying:
"I don't know whether it is better to have freedom or to have no freedom.
With too much freedom, it can get very chaotic.
It could end up like in Taiwan.
Chinese people need to be controlled; otherwise, they will do whatever they want."
Whether you agree or disagree with Chan's beliefs, one thing's for certain: he knows
how to get pulses racing no matter where his fans fall on the political spectrum!