Jackie Chan

In 1982, Chan married the Taiwanese actress Lin Feng-jiao, also known as Joan Lin. In the same year they had a son, Jaycee Chan who is a singer and actor

Chan is a follower of the Buddhist religion. He can speak many languages like Cantonese, Mandarin, English, German, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Thai, etc.

Jackie Chan was born as Chan Kong-sang to Charles and Lee-Lee Chan in British Hong Kong. His parents were the refugees from the Chinese Civil War and worked for the French ambassador in Hong Kong.

In 1960, Chan’s father was sent to Canberra, Australia to work for the American Embassy. Around this time Chan was sent to the Chinese Opera Research Institute in Hong Kong to be trained in music, dance and Traditional martial arts. He joined a performance group called the Seven Little Fortunes there.

In 1962, at the age of eight, along with the fellow mates from the performance group, Chan appeared in the movie called ‘Big and Little Wong Tin Bar’. This lead to his appearance in another movie next year called ‘The Love Eterne’. Subsequently, he kept making small appearances in movies like ‘Come Drink with Me’ (1966) and ‘A Touch of Zen’ (1971).

He also had a brief stint as stuntman in Bruce Lee films ‘Fist of Fury’ and ‘Enter the Dragon’.

At the age of 19, in 1973, Chan got his first major role in the movie ‘Little Tiger of Canton’ and then he starred in a comedy movie called ‘All in the Family’ (1975). This movie had Chan’s first nude sex scene. He made the shift from action movies to comedy because his action movies have been a failure until now.

In 1976, Chan got an opportunity from a film producer in Hong Kong called Willie Chan to work in his movie as a stuntman. The film was called ‘New Fist of Fury’ and it had Chan in the main lead. The movie did not do very well as Chan could not exhibit Bruce Lee’s martial arts style and the whole movie was supposed to be modeled on his style.

In 1978, Chan worked in the movie called ‘Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow’ which proved to be a major success in his film career. Chan had full freedom to stage his stunts as he liked. This film was responsible of establishing the comedic kung fu genre, which became very popular with the Hong Kong audience.

After the death of martial arts prodigy Bruce Lee, it came upon Chan to follow him. But Chan decided to come up with his own style of filmmaking. In the year 1978, he was declared to be the most popular martial arts superstar in all of the Asia.

In 1980, he directed his first movie ‘The Young Master. This movie became a super hit and was considered to the first innovation combination of slapstick comedy and martial arts.

In 1982, he directed and starred in another venture called the ‘Dragon Lord’. In this movie he extensively experimented with intricate stunts.

In the year 1980 and 1982, Chan’s first two directorial ventures were launched, ‘The Young Master’ and ‘Dragon Lord’. Both the movies did very well at the Hong Kong box office and new innovations in comedy and martial arts stunts were introduced in the movies for the first time.

‘Armour of God’ in 1987 was a huge success at the box office that grossed over 35 million Hong Kong dollars.

In 1998, ‘Rush Hour’ was a huge success at the Hollywood box office, starring Chris Tucker along with him and it helped him to establish himself more properly in the west.