Download Jackie Chan Movies
Yanira Gauntner
In 1976, Jackie Chan received a telegram from Willie Chan, a film producer in the Hong Kong film industry who had been impressed with Jackie's stunt choreography work. Willie Chan offered him an acting role in a film directed by Lo Wei. Lo saw Chan's performance in the John Woo film Hand of Death (1976) and planned to model him after Bruce Lee with the film New Fist of Fury.[34] His stage name was changed to 成龍 (literally "becoming the dragon",[5][3] Sing4 Lung4 in Jyutping[3] or rarely as Cheng Long in pinyin),[38] to emphasise his similarity to Bruce Lee, whose stage name meant "Lee the Little Dragon" in Chinese. (Note that "dragon" in Lee's name referred to Lee's birth year being the Dragon zodiac, not the Chinese dragon.) The film was unsuccessful because Chan was not accustomed to Lee's martial arts style. Despite the film's failure, Lo Wei continued producing films with similar themes, but with little improvement at the box office.[39]
Numerous films from around the world have taken inspiration from Jackie Chan's fight sequences and action choreography. Examples include The Matrix and Kill Bill (both choreographed by his former colleague Yuen Woo-ping), the Kung Fu Panda series (where he also voiced Monkey), The Raid: Redemption (2011) from Indonesian cinema, Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), the John Wick series, Atomic Blonde (2017), Marvel Cinematic Universe films such as Black Panther (2018) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), the DC Extended Universe film Birds of Prey (2020), and the Netflix film Extraction (2020).[143] British filmmaker Edgar Wright cited Chan as an influence and said that, "No matter how many people try and rip off Jackie Chan movies, there's something which they can't rip off which is Jackie Chan himself."[130] Tom Holland also cited Chan as an influence on several action scenes in Uncharted (2022), noting Chan's use of his surroundings to fight people in unique ways.[144][145]
He has been cited as the inspiration for manga and anime such as Dragon Ball, which was particularly inspired by Drunken Master,[146][147][148] and the fight scenes in Jackie Chan movies;[149][150] the show pays homage with a character by the alias "Jackie Chun".[151] Toriyama said he had a young Jackie Chan in mind for a live-action Goku, stating that "nobody could play Goku but him."[152] Chan himself was a fan of the series, and had expressed some interest in adapting Dragon Ball into a live-action film, but said it would require "a lot of amazing special effects and an enormous budget."[153]
A number of video games have been based on, or featured, Jackie Chan. His film Wheels on Meals (called Spartan X in Japan) spawned the hit 1984 beat 'em up arcade game Spartan X (released as Kung-Fu Master in Western markets), and its sequel Spartan X 2 for the Nintendo Famicom console. Spartan X laid the foundations for the beat 'em up genre,[156][157] and inspired other games including Super Mario Bros. (1985)[158][159] and Street Fighter (1987).[160][161] Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu was released in 1990 for the PC-Engine and Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1995, Chan was featured in the arcade game Jackie Chan The Kung-Fu Master. A series of Japanese video games were released on the MSX computer by Pony, based on several of Chan's films (Project A, Project A 2, Police Story, The Protector and Wheels on Meals). Other games based on Jackie Chan include Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, Jackie Chan Adventures and Jackie Chan J-Mat Fitness.[162] Chan also inspired video game characters such as Lei Wulong in Tekken and the fighting-type Pokémon Hitmonchan.[163][164][165]
Chan was also the primary catalyst for the creation of review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, whose founder Senh Duong was his fan and created the website after collecting all the reviews of Chan's Hong Kong action movies as they were being released in the United States. In anticipation for Rush Hour, Chan's first major Hollywood crossover, he coded the website in two weeks and the site went live shortly before the release of Rush Hour.[172][173]
Aside from the obvious Action or Martial Arts, Jackie Chan's movies are filled with very angular fight scenes (i.e. Punch, Hesitation, Retraction, Counter, etc...). There is a deliberateness to it, and I understand that it needs to be well choreographed but it just doesn't flow the way an actual fight might. There's always that moment of hesitation after a punch where the arm is left sticking straight out, etc...
I've seen enough Saturday Matinee movies as a kid to know that not all Martial Arts movies are like this. Bruce Lee movies, for example, featured very straight-forward Martial Arts scenes that were taken seriously.
The film style of Jackie Chan movies is "Hong Kong Action Cinema". While Jackie's style is unique, others of the same time era feature the same techniques of Peking Opera influenced acrobatics, Kung Fu, and slapstick. My understanding is that this style of film was specific to Hong Kong and distinct from Mainland Chinese films of the time.
Originally planned to be team-up for Stallone and Chan, Stallone got distracted back into Creed II, a wise choice really, and instead John Cena was brought on board, with filming taking place way back in 2018 and almost immediately getting hit by natural disasters and production delays. Director Scott Waugh has made anything but a good name for himself since his inauspicious real-soldiers actioner, Act of Valor, doubling down on trash with Need for Speed, and finally lining up a Stallone flick, helming the upcoming "eagerly anticipated" Expendables 4. Unfortunately, if this delayed mess is anything to judge it by, things are looking even worse than for Expend4bles than the terrible trailer might have already suggested, with all those delays suggesting why even the basic premise of the story changed so significantly in the years its taken to get this puppy out of the door.
Jackie Chan is most synonymous in the West with familiar Hollywood franchises like Rush Hour, and Kung Fu Panda, as well as both Shanghai Noon and Knights. Though some of these movies are light-hearted fun and have wowed audiences with Chan's energetic choreography, they barely begin to scratch the surface of his extraordinary talents, or what he had already achieved on film up to that point.
Before his successful excursions into Hollywood (and the one that wasn't so successful) Jackie Chan was making a name for himself in some of the most riveting movies your eyes will ever feast on. In fact, most of his best work came before he even set foot in the land of opportunity.
They were movies where Chan and his stunt cohort would literally put their bodies on the line in the name of entertainment. They performed death-defying stunts and mind-blowing fight scenes, without CGI, that inspired generations of stunt performers and directors.
To the casual fan, it can be far too easy to dismiss a movie that looks old, is set in a bygone era, and is in a completely different language. It's the kind of ignorance that simply robs you of the viewing pleasure of bonafide classic movies. With that in mind, one of the most essential and well regarded amongst Jackie Chan's illustrious career to date is the seminal 1978 masterpiece, Drunken Master.
Drunken Master was so good it spawned a number of imitations that riffed on the movie's title and style in the aftermath of its release. It's also firmly implanted into popular culture, with characters in video games who mimic the drunken fight style present in the movie. It's also one of the first movies in the kung fu comedy subgenre, inspiring countless others after it.
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