Jackie Chan Filmography:

Jackie Chan began his film career as an extra child actor in the 1962 film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar. Ten years later, he was a stuntman opposite Bruce Lee in 1972’s Fist of Fury and 1973’s Enter the Dragon. He then had starring roles in several kung fu films, such as 1973’s Little Tiger of Canton and 1976’s New Fist of Fury. His first major breakthrough was the 1978 kung fu action comedy film Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, which was shot while he was loaned to Seasonal Film Corporation under a two-picture deal. He then enjoyed huge success with similar kung fu action comedy films such as 1978’s Drunken Master and 1980’s The Young Master. Jackie Chan began experimenting with elaborate stunt action sequences in The Young Master and especially Dragon Lord (1982).

1983’s Project A saw the official formation of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and established Chan’s signature style of elaborate, dangerous stunts combined with martial arts and slapstick humor, a style he further developed in a more modern setting with 1984’s Wheels on Meals and notably 1985’s Police Story, which contained numerous large-scale action scenes and is considered one of the best action films of all time. Chan continued his style of slapstick martial arts mixed with elaborate stunts in numerous other films, such as the Police Story sequels, the Armour of God series, Project A Part II (1987), Dragons Forever (1988), Twin Dragons (1992), City Hunter (1993), and Drunken Master II (1994), among others. Rumble in the Bronx (1995) made Jackie Chan a mainstream celebrity in North America, leading to a successful Hollywood career with the Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon series.

Jackie Chan: I’ve nearly lost my life over 200 times

In 2000, Chan produced an animated series Jackie Chan Adventures, which ran until 2005. In 2010, Jackie Chan appeared in his first dramatic role in an American film, The Karate Kid. In 2017, the Chinese-Indian co-production Kung Fu Yoga became his highest-grossing film in China. As of 2021, Jackie Chan has appeared in nearly 150 films. At the box office, ten of his films earned nearly US$200,000,000 (equivalent to $500,000,000 in 2021) worldwide between 1985 and 1989. By the mid-1990s, he had become the most popular action movie star in Asia and Europe, with at least 20 films (out of 40 films) up until then earning him a net income of $5 million per film. In East Asia, his films collectively grossed HK$1.14 billion (US$146 million) in Hong Kong between 1973 and 2010.

¥48.4 billion (US$607 million) in Japan between 1979 and 2012, and over US$72 million in South Korea between 1991 and 2010, while topping the Taiwan box office ten times between 1982 and 1994. In Europe, his films collectively sold about 84 million tickets between 1973 and 2010. As of 2021, his films have grossed over ¥14 billion RMB (US$2.17 billion) in China, and US$1.84 billion (more than US$2.44 billion adjusted for inflation) in the United States and Canada. As of 2018, 48 of his films listed by The Numbers have grossed more than US$5 billion at the worldwide box office.

Film career:

1962–1975: Early small appearances

He began his film career by appearing in small roles at the age of five as a child actor. At age eight, he appeared with some of his fellow “Little Fortunes” in the film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar (1962) with Li Li-Hua playing his mother. The following year, the young actor appeared in extras of Yen Chun’s 1964 film Liang Shan Po and Chu Ying Tai and had a small role in King Hu’s 1966 film Come Drink with Me. In 1971, after an appearance as an extra in another kung fu film, A Touch of Zen, Chan was signed to Chu Mu’s Great Earth Film Company.

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Chan appeared in the Bruce Lee film Fist of Fury (1972), both as an extra and as a stunt double for the Japanese villain Hiroshi Suzuki (portrayed by Riki Hashimoto), particularly during the final fight scene where Lee kicks him and he flies through the air. Chan again appeared in another Bruce Lee film, Enter the Dragon (1973), as a minor henchman who gets killed by Lee’s character. Sammo Hung helped Chan get minor roles in both of the Bruce Lee films. Chan also worked as a martial arts choreographer for John Woo’s The Young Dragons (1974).

Personal life:

In 1982, Chan married Joan Lin, a Taiwanese actress. Their son, singer and actor Jaycee Chan, was born that same year. Chan’s extra-marital affair with Elaine Ng Yi-Lei and has a daughter Etta Ng Chok Lam, born on 18 January 1999. It turned into a scandal within the media. Although he reportedly gave Elaine 70,000 HK dollars each month for her living expenses and 600,000 HK dollars when she moved to Shanghai, the transactions were later claimed to be nonexistent by her lawyer.

Despite regretting the results of the affair, Chan said he had “only committed a fault that many men in the world commit”. During the incident, Elaine stated she would take care of her daughter without Chan. Chan speaks Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and American Sign Language and also speaks some German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, and Thai. Chan is an avid football fan and supports the Hong Kong national football team, the England national football team, and Manchester City. He is a fan of the Italian duo Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, from whom he was inspired for his movies.