Jackie Chan

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Total ratings: 0
Movies listed: 92

Born: 1954-04-07
From: Victoria Peak, Hong Kong

Awards

Academy Honorary Award2016 · Academy Honorary Award
Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actor1992 · 29th Golden Horse Film Awards
Member of the Order of the British Empire1989 · Member of the Order of the British Empire
Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actor1983 · 30th Golden Horse Film Awards
American Choreography AwardsAmerican Choreography Awards
Chevalier des Arts et des LettresChevalier des Arts et des Lettres

Biography

Jackie Chan (born Chan Kong-sang on 7 April 1954) is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker, martial artist, stunt performer, action choreographer, producer, and singer. He is known for combining martial-arts choreography with slapstick comedy, acrobatics, elaborate stunt work, and a willingness to perform many of his own dangerous physical sequences. Over a career beginning in childhood, Chan became one of the most internationally recognized figures in action cinema and helped bring Hong Kong film style to a global audience.

Chan was born in British Hong Kong and was enrolled as a child at the China Drama Academy, a Peking opera school run by Yu Jim-yuen. There he trained intensively in acrobatics, martial arts, singing, and stage performance, later becoming associated with the troupe known as the Seven Little Fortunes. He entered the film industry as a child performer and stuntman, including work connected to the Hong Kong martial-arts cinema of the Bruce Lee era. That training shaped his later screen identity: unlike many action stars, Chan built fight scenes around rhythm, improvisation, pain, comic escalation, and the use of everyday objects as props.

After early attempts to present him as a successor to Bruce Lee, Chan found wider success by developing a more comic and acrobatic style. Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master, both released in 1978, established him as a leading performer in action comedy. He soon moved into directing and action design as well as acting, with films such as The Fearless Hyena, The Young Master, and Project A. In the 1980s he was closely associated with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, and with a broader Hong Kong filmmaking culture built around stunt teams, rapid production, and inventive physical set pieces.