58 Fun Facts About Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan's parents arrived in Hong Kong as political refugees from which conflict?

The Chinese Civil War uprooted them: his father had worked for Nationalist intelligence and left for Hong Kong once the Communists won, a past he kept from Jackie for decades.

Chan's father originally had which surname before fleeing to Hong Kong?

Fang was the name his father shed on reaching Hong Kong. Told the family secret as an adult, the star took the Chinese name Fang Shilong.

Chan grew up in the grounds of which diplomat's Victoria Peak residence, where his father was the cook?

The French consul's residence gave the Chans one of Hong Kong's smartest addresses on servants' pay: his father cooked there and his mother kept house.

At the China Drama Academy, Chan trained in what tradition?

Peking Opera meant a decade of acrobatics, singing and martial arts drills, and the tumbling it taught him is what first got him hired as a film stuntman.

The elite performing group of the China Drama Academy, which included Chan, was called what?

The Seven Little Fortunes also featured Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, and the bond outlived the school: the three went on to star together in a run of 1980s hits.

Chan also studied taekwondo, but in which other Korean martial art did he earn a black belt?

Hapkido came only after he was already working in films: he and Sammo Hung trained in Hong Kong under Korean grandmaster Jin Pal Kim, whose high kicks drew the local stars.

In Shanghai Noon, the name of Chan's Chinese guard is a pun on which star of Hollywood Westerns?

John Wayne is what his outlaw partner hears when Chon Wang introduces himself, only to dismiss it as a terrible name for a cowboy.

Chan picked up the name Jack from a fellow builder while working on construction sites in which country?

Australia: he joined his parents in Canberra in the early 1970s, and a builder named Jack lent him the name because the crew struggled with Kong-sang. Little Jack later became Jackie.

In Around the World in 80 Days (2004), Chan played which Jules Verne character?

Passepartout, the valet, became the hero of this remake: the story was reworked around Chan, pushing Steve Coogan's Phileas Fogg into the supporting role.

In Bruce Lee's 1972 revenge film, Chan was stunt double for which character, sent flying by Lee's final kick?

Suzuki, the Japanese dojo master, dies from that kick, and the body sailing backwards through the garden is Chan's. The fall got him noticed, and Lee used him again on Enter the Dragon.

Chan appears in Enter the Dragon (1973) as what?

A minor henchman killed by Lee's character: Chan is among the guards Lee cuts down underground. Sammo Hung, who helped him get the job, is the fighter Lee beats in the opening scene.

Director Lo Wei tried to mould Chan into the next Bruce Lee with which 1976 film?

New Fist of Fury was a follow-up to one of Lee's biggest hits, and it flopped: Chan found his feet only when he dropped the Lee impression and played kung fu for laughs.

Chan's stage name Sing Lung, given to echo Bruce Lee's, literally means what?

Becoming the dragon was a pitch as much as a name: it cast him as heir to Lee, whose own screen name meant Little Dragon. Some translate it as 'already a dragon'.

Which 1978 film, directed by Yuen Woo-ping, gave Chan his first major breakthrough?

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow was made on loan to another studio, where he was at last free to play kung fu for laughs; the comic style it launched became his trademark.

Which 1978 film finally propelled Chan to mainstream success?

Drunken Master recast a revered folk hero, Wong Fei-hung, as a mischievous youth who must learn a staggering, tipsy fighting style, and it made Chan a star across Asia.

Which 1979 film was Chan's directorial debut?

The Fearless Hyena had him writing and starring as well as directing, and it was a hit. Even so, he walked out on producer Lo Wei while its sequel was still shooting.

When Chan quit Lo Wei's studio for Golden Harvest, Lo is said to have pressured him using which group?

Triad gangsters turned up on his sets, by several accounts, and Chan left for America for a while. Veteran star Jimmy Wang Yu finally brokered a truce.

What was Chan's first Hollywood film, released in 1980?

The Big Brawl reunited the director and producer of Enter the Dragon in the hope of launching another Bruce Lee, but it underperformed and American stardom eluded Chan until the mid-1990s.

Which 1981 Burt Reynolds comedy, with Chan in a small role, inspired him to put outtakes over his credits?

The Cannonball Run put Chan in a gadget-packed Subaru. Its director liked to roll bloopers under the credits, and within a year Chan's own films were ending the same way.

Which director presented Chan with MTV's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995, hailing him as a great physical comedian?

Quentin Tarantino's tribute came before Chan had a single American hit, and the buzz around it helped persuade Hollywood distributors to give his films another try.

After 56 years in film and some 200 movies, Chan finally received which award in 2016?

An honorary Oscar, for a star never once nominated for a competitive one. Accepting it, he said that after so many films and so many broken bones, 'finally this is mine.'

In which 1983 film does Chan fall from a clock tower through cloth awnings?

Project A's clock-tower drop was filmed three times. The take where he lands badly plays with the outtakes over the credits.

In a 1987 sequel, Chan restaged which silent star's stunt of a house front toppling around him?

Buster Keaton made the stunt famous in Steamboat Bill, Jr., standing where an open window would pass over him. Chan repeated the gag in tribute, with a falling wall.

Police Story's crew nicknamed it 'Glass Story' after the sugar glass smashed in a finale set where?

A shopping mall, and a working one: the crew filmed through the night and had to clear the wreckage so the shops could open again in the morning.

For Police Story's finale, Chan slid several storeys down a pole wrapped in what?

Light bulbs burst all the way down, shredding and burning his hands, and the landing damaged his spine and dislocated his pelvis. He still got up and finished the shot.

In Rob-B-Hood (2006), Chan's burglar ends up with which unexpected haul?

A kidnapped baby turns two selfish thieves into doting nannies. The part was a deliberate break from his nice-guy image: a burglar who gambles away every haul.

Chan came closest to death on which film, fracturing his skull when a jump to a tree branch went wrong?

Armour of God nearly killed him on a routine jump from a wall to a tree: he fell, cracked his skull and was left with a permanent hole in it and poor hearing in one ear.

Which 1994 Chan sequel made Time magazine's All-Time 100 Movies list?

Drunken Master II had Chan, nearly 40, still playing a young man, with a screen mother, Anita Mui, who was younger than he was. For the finale he really did fall onto burning coals.

Who played Demolition Man's villain Simon Phoenix after Chan turned the role down?

Wesley Snipes got the part only after Sylvester Stallone had pressed for Chan, who said no because he did not want audiences to see him as a villain.

Rumble in the Bronx, the 1995 hit that broke Chan in America, was actually filmed in which city?

Vancouver stood in for New York so loosely that critics spotted mountains behind the 'Bronx'. Chan also broke his ankle during the shoot and carried on with the cast hidden.

Who co-starred with Chan in the 1998 buddy-cop hit Rush Hour?

Chris Tucker's motormouth cop helped make it Chan's American breakthrough, yet Chan says he never liked the film: he took the part at his manager's urging and does not get the humour.

Who played Dre, the bullied boy Chan trains, in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid?

Jaden Smith was the reason the remake existed: his father, Will Smith, produced it as a star vehicle for him, with the story moved to Beijing.

Chan's 2000 Western comedy Shanghai Noon paired him with which actor?

Owen Wilson's outlaw talks like a laid-back modern surfer, and the chatter had a purpose: as in Rush Hour, a motormouth partner covers for Chan's limited English.

Chan's planned 2001 comedy Nosebleed, about a window washer foiling terrorists, was set where?

The World Trade Center was to be his window washer's workplace. By Chan's own account a late script kept him from filming there on September 11, 2001, and the comedy was never made.

Chan first shared the screen with Jet Li in which 2008 film?

The Forbidden Kingdom was sold on that pairing, which Jet Li said the two old friends had waited 15 years to make happen.

Which character did Chan voice in the Kung Fu Panda films?

Master Monkey is one of the Furious Five, the heroes the panda Po idolises, so the real kung fu legend ends up playing support to a clumsy novice voiced by Jack Black.

In the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid, Chan played which character?

Mr. Han is a quiet Beijing maintenance man with hidden kung fu skills, and kung fu is all he teaches: despite its title, the remake has no karate in it.

Billed as Chan's 100th movie, his 2011 historical drama depicted which event?

The fall of the Qing dynasty came with the 1911 revolution, and the film, titled simply 1911, was made to mark its centenary. Chan co-directed and played rebel commander Huang Xing.

Alongside 'most stunts by a living actor', Guinness gave Chan which other record for CZ12 (2012)?

Credits in one movie: Chan took 15 on the film, also known as Chinese Zodiac, serving as director, star, composer, gaffer and even catering coordinator.

Chan's 2017 thriller The Foreigner co-starred which former James Bond?

Pierce Brosnan plays a former IRA man turned politician, hounded by Chan's grieving father after a bombing kills his daughter. The director, Martin Campbell, was an old Bond hand too, having made GoldenEye and Casino Royale.

In the Chinese dubs of Disney's Mulan, Chan voiced which character?

Li Shang's training anthem, I'll Make a Man Out of You, is sung in English by Donny Osmond; Chan recorded it in Mandarin and Cantonese and filmed a music video for it.

Chan's Cantonese film theme 'Story of a Hero' was taken up in the 1990s by which Hong Kong institution?

The Royal Hong Kong Police used it in recruitment adverts, and it became the theme of the TV programme Police Report. It was a natural fit: Chan first sang it over the credits of Police Story.

Chan performed 'Hard to Say Goodbye' at the closing ceremony of which Olympic Games?

Beijing 2008 put him to work twice: a year earlier he recorded 'We Are Ready', the official one-year countdown song, and at the close he shared the farewell number with other Chinese stars.

Since 2004 Chan has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for which United Nations agency?

UNICEF appointed him during a 2004 visit to Cambodia, and the brief was a sombre one for a screen clown: children living with HIV and young survivors of landmines.

Chan secretly married actress Joan Lin in which city in December 1982, the day before their son was born?

Los Angeles: their son Jaycee was born there the very next day. Lin was one of Taiwan's biggest film stars of the 1970s, yet the couple kept the marriage secret for years.

Which review-aggregation site began as a fan's collection of reviews of Chan's Hong Kong films?

Rotten Tomatoes was coded in two weeks by Chan fan Senh Duong, who timed it for the release of Rush Hour. The film was then delayed a month, so the site beat it to launch.

Which 1984 arcade hit, loosely based on Chan's film Wheels on Meals, laid the groundwork for the beat 'em up genre?

Kung-Fu Master was sold in Japan as Spartan X, the film's Japanese title, with a hero named after Chan's character. Its designer went on to create Street Fighter.

Which manga's creator, hooked on Chan's kung fu comedies, said only a young Jackie Chan could have played its hero?

Dragon Ball owes him more than a casting wish: Akira Toriyama said he watched one Chan comedy some 200 times, and his wise old master fights in disguise as 'Jackie Chun'.

In 2017 a car from Chan's co-owned racing team led outright and finished second overall in which race?

The 24 Hours of Le Mans nearly fell to a second-tier LMP2 car: Jackie Chan DC Racing's No. 38 led outright late on, was passed with about an hour to go and still won its class.

In 2006 Chan pledged to give what to charity upon his death?

Half his assets was only the start: in 2011 he said his only son would inherit none of the rest either, reasoning that a capable man can earn his own money.

Which actress played the secret agent partnered with Chan's hapless driver in The Tuxedo (2002)?

Jennifer Love Hewitt played the agent, but the real co-star was the suit: a gadget-filled tuxedo does the fighting, a rare Chan film that leaned on special effects instead of his own stunts.

Which martial arts star had his first on-screen fight with Chan in Shanghai Knights (2003)?

Donnie Yen plays Wu Chow, so two of Hong Kong's great screen fighters first traded blows not at home but in a Hollywood comedy set in Victorian London.

Which Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star played the assassin in Chan's Rush Hour 2?

Zhang Ziyi took the villain's part straight after Crouching Tiger, and her showpiece fight is not with Chan at all but with his loudmouth partner.

Chan first sang his own closing theme, 'Kung Fu Fighting Man', in which 1980 film?

The Young Master was a hit made with full creative control at his new studio, and its theme began a habit: Chan went on to sing the closing themes of many of his later films.

Which actress played Pei-Pei, the runaway princess Chan's guard is sent to rescue, in Shanghai Noon?

Lucy Liu's princess is no helpless captive: she fled China to escape an arranged marriage, and by the end she has decided to stay in America.

Which country made Chan a 'Datuk', a title akin to a knighthood, in 2015?

Malaysia's king conferred the title on Federal Territory Day. The federal territories minister said Chan, who had shot Police Story scenes in Kuala Lumpur, could help promote the city.

Chan endorsed the 'Little Tyrant', a Chinese clone of which games console sold as a 'learning machine'?

The Nintendo Entertainment System was cloned inside a keyboard and sold to parents as a study aid, a disguise that let Subor sell game machines to Chinese homes despite a ban on consoles.

Which British director said no one can rip off 'Jackie Chan himself', no matter how many copy his films?

Edgar Wright's point was that Chan's signature move is not attacking but defending: he blocks, gets kicked and visibly hurts, a loveable everyman where other action stars play it cool.