Jackie Chan: Biography, Movies, & Facts

Jackie Chan was born Chan Kong, Sang on April 7, 1954, Hong Kong, China. While Jackie was still a little young boy, his parents then moved to Australia to find new jobs but they wanted Jackie to stay so he could study at the Chinese Opera Research Institute, which is a boarding school in Hong Kong.

Within the next couple of years Jackie started in his first film, “The Cantonese feature Little Big and Little Wong Tin Bar” (1962), and he was only eight and he went on to be in more musical films. When he graduated in 1971, his first job was an acrobat and a stuntmen, he then started as a stuntmen for a movie called, “Fist of Fury” (1972), which starred Hong Kong’s favorite movie actor Bruce Lee.

After Bruce Lee’s unexpected death in 1973, Jackie decided to work with Lo Wei, a producer and a director who had work with Bruce. Unfortunately the two split up in the late 1970s and that’s when Jackie realized that he should start his own path to becoming an actor. He then started doing his own stunts with a little bit of comedy mixed together and with a blink of an eye an actor was born.

He had so many films that had came out as” Kung Fu Comedy”, which are “Drunken Master” (1978), “The Fearless Hyena” (1979), “Half a Loaf of Kung Fu” (1980), and “The Young Master” (1980). As many people have watched these hilarious movies Jackie had become the highest paid actor in Kong Kong and known as an international superstar throughout Asia. He was basically the director and the producer for most of his films and he would always perform the theme songs.

In 1980s Jackie wanted to push his luck out to Hollywood. He got his chance to start in a film called, “The Big Brawl” (1980) which dropped. Back in Hong Kong Jackie’s stardom began to grow even more. He did more action comedies which were called, “ Project A” (1983). “Police Story” (1985), “Armor of God” (1986), “Mr.Canton and Lady Rose” (1989), and a remake of one of Frank Capra’s films, “A Pocket of Miracles” (1961).

In 1986 Jackie formed his own company called, “Golden Way”, he also had a casting/modeling agency called,”Jackie’s Angels”, in order to recruit talent for many of his films. Jackie had many people that were injured during, “Police Story”, he then put together the, “Jackie Chan Stuntmen Association”, which he personally trained with them and he provided medical coverage for its members. In 1986, during the film, “Armor of God”, while attempting to jump forty feet from the top of the building to a tree branch, he fractured his skull.

In the 1990s, Jackie made sequels to his, “Police Story”, and “Drunken Master”. Jackie wasn’t known in America but by the mid 1990s a series of events had brought him to a wider American audience. In 1995, Jackie had come up with his own character for a comic book called, “Spartan X”, a series that was very popular in Asia and the United States.

Jackie was then awarded at the MTV Movie Awards with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Quentin Tarantino who started in the film, “Pulp Fiction” (1994). Jackie had three films that made the ratings go up, “Jackie Chan’s First Strike” (1997), “Mr. Nice Guy” (1998), and “Rush Hour” (1998).

In 2002, Jackie co-starred with Jennifer Love Hewitt in the film called, “The Tuxedo”, it’s about a tuxedo that gives the taxi driver powers when he puts it on. Later on he received a Hollywood Star on the Walk of Fame and then he was awarded with a Taurus Award for Best action movie star at the World Stunts Awards.

Jackie did other amazing sequels which were, “ Shanghai Knights (2003), but “The Medallion”, and “Around the world in 80 days” (2004) both dropped. Jackie wanted more financial and artistic control over his films, so he co-founded with JCE Movies Limited in 2004, he successfully produced more Hong Kong films, “New Police Story” (2004), “The Myth” (2005), and Rob-B-Hood (2006).

In 2007, Jackie had released, “Rush Hour 3” (2007). In 2008 he became the voice Master Monkey which was for the animated movie, “Kung Fu Panda, which went to a video game, a sequel and a TV series. That same year, he also appeared in a movie called, “The Forbidden Kingdom”, with another Chinese actor, Jet Li. The U.S. then had Jackie appear in family movies called, “The Spy Next Door” (2010), and a remake of, “The Karate Kid” (2010).

Jackie was adored by many people as he starred in more action comedy, “Shinjuku Incident” (2009), he starred and wrote this film, “Little Big Soldier” (2010). In 2011, he completed a big project as co-director and star of, “1911.CZ12” (2012), Jackie then franchised with “Police Story” (2013). Jackie was thrilled with the 2015 3-D film, “Dragon Blade”, which had two American actors, John Cusack and Adrien Brody, later in 2016 would be introduced with two films, “Skiptrace and Railroad Tigers”.