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| welcome to the bonzai |
| Alright! So the first thing I would like to share with everybody is a quick background on Jackie Chan: Jackie Chan is one of the most recognized names in kung fu and action movies worldwide, known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing and use of improvised weapons. Chan has starred in over a hundred movies, and is one of the most recognizable Chinese and Asian film stars in the world. Chan was already the highest paid actor in Asia, with more than 60 films under his belt, when he finally made it big in Hollywood with the action-comedy Rumble in the Bronx (1995). Born into poverty, Chan spent his childhood in rigorous physical training at the China Drama Academy in Hong Kong. In the 1970s he began getting work in Hong Kong action movies as a stuntman, then in small parts as an actor. By 1980 he was a lead player responsible for his own projects, shunning the Bruce Lee model of the intense, courageous hero in favor of the comic, reluctant hero that is now Chan's trademark. He acts, produces and directs and performs his own stunts, and his well-choreographed fight scenes are almost always performed with everyday props instead of weapons. Chan was a stuntman in the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon (1973)... Chan is also the star of the television cartoon for kids, Jackie Chan Adventures. Now here is some interesting stuff about the real Jackie Chan! |
| His Injuries! 1985 Movie: Armour of God During a stunt,Jackie fell from a tree, and split open his skull. The acident caused a brain hemmorhage, skull fragments had to be removed from his brain. To date, this is the most serious injury he has suffered. 1978 Movie: Drunken Master Jackie suffered a broken eye socket, when he was kicked in the face. 1992 Movie: Police Story III Dislocated and fractured his cheek bone. 1995 Movie: First Strike Split his upper lip, during an action sequence.(Note: Before he becomes famous, a kick to the face breaks a tooth) 1982 Movie: Dragon Lord Broke lower jaw bone. 1980 Movie: Young Master Jackie broke his nose on one incident, and on another he took a heavy blow to the throat, which nearly killed him. 1983 Movie: Project "A" Fell from the clock tower, a little more then 10meters, and sprained his neck. In another incident he re-broke his nose. 1996 Movie: A Nice Guy Hurts his nose, yet another time. During a stunt gone wrong, Jackie dislocates his neck and also tears a ligament in his neck. 1992 Movie: City Hunter Dislocates shoulder blade. 1985 Movie: The Protector Injured the bones in his hand. 1985 Movie: Police Story Scraps skin off both hands, sliding down the electrical pole. 1995 Movie: Drunken Master II Burns hands and face, during end fight scenes. 1990 Movie: Armour of God II In a dangerous scene, Jackie was hit across the chest. His sternum(breast bone) was broken and dislocated. 1985 Movie: Police Story I Jackie slides down an electrical pole several storys, and injures the 6th, 7th and 8th vertebrae, and dislocates the pelvic girdle. 1992 Movie: Police Story III Fractures a rib when he's hit by a helicopter. 1994 Movie:Drunken Master II Injures his back, when he is kicked into a table. 1995 Movie:Thunderbolt Jackie cracks his hip bone. 1992 Movie: City Hunter Hurts his knee, while rollerskating. 1994 Movie: Rumble in Bronx Jackie jumps from a bridge onto hover craft and breaks his ankle. Also broke his toe so badly that bone pierced the skin. _____________________ After all that, it's only appropriate to say, "ouch?" Now we see some of Jackie Chan's "real fights." (These are quotes from Jackie Chan). Real Fights! Detroit, Michigan "I met the first trouble-maker the day I arrived in Detroit, Michigan. When I stepped in the City Center, I saw a banner written, 'Jackie Chan - Master of Kung-Fu', being hung on the front door of City Hall. I immediately sensed the unpleasant atmosphere of the crowd, apparently offended by the words on the banner. As I predicted, trouble came. As my interview was coming to an end, I was asked to perform a few Kung-fu techniques. At that point a guy jumps onto the stage and shouts to me, "Jackie Chan, what would you do if someone attacks you?" The guy wasn't tall but had a sturdy built. From the way he dressed and behaved, he probably wanted to get a name for himself by striking me. While I was concentrating I also watched for the staff's reaction. But they didn't take any action, they wanted to see the duel. I had no choice but to keep calm and ready myself. In fact I decided to kick his legs. He made the first move, he swung his fists, looking like a fient move. Anyhow my left foot already struck his legs. With a loud 'bang' he hit the stage. At that point we were surrounded by the staff." Cincinnati, Ohio "In a network station in Cincinnati, Ohio, I was demonstrating how to free myself from being strangled from behind. My performing partner was a 6 foot male. But unlike our act in the rehearsal, when facing the camera, he squeezed my neck as tight as he could and I almost suffocated. I knew what I had to do. First an elbow to his ribs loosed his grip, then I twisted my body and with my hands over his back I pulled and rolled his body in a complete circle, heels over head. A terrific move! That two hundred pounder landed right in front of me, knocked out for a moment." Portland, Oregon "At a welcome party In Portland, Oregon, a male approached and asked for a duel . Being a guest at the party I refused his request. This guy, rather cunning, was seemingly disappionted and wanted to shake my hand goodbye. Once our hands grasped I could feel his seizing force and I knew I was trapped. I immediately moved my legs into a defensive position. In fact that guy was pretty strong with his grasp. I gripped his viens to lower the blood circulation, and his force gradually turned weak. While I was about to free my palm I saw him raising his left fist. I instantly grasped his thumb and commanded his wrist. At that point he could make no move." _____________________ Some intense stuff! Jackie Chan can indeed take care of himself. :D Now we see... Jackie Chan's Top Ten Fights!(in his opinion) "Jet Fighter, Part One," Wheels on Meals This was my first face-off with American champion kickboxer Benny "The Jet" Urquidez. He's a great fighter--good enough that he tested my skills to the limit. In fact, throughout the filming of this scene, I teased him that we should fight a real match, not just a movie brawl. "Come on, Benny, let's do it," I'd say. And he'd say, "Any time, Jackie, any time." Well, the time was always "sometime soon," and by the time the film was finished, he finally caught on that I was just joking. To be honest, I don't know who would have won if we did fight. He's that good. "Mall Brawl," Police Story Well, I said that Police Story was my favorite movie for action, didn't I? Leading up to the Great Glass Slide was a fight that just didn't let up, with shattering shop windows and display cases everywhere, and nearly everyone getting cut or bruised as the glass flew. Even Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia--poor Brigitte!--got into the action, with her body being thrown through a glass table. I have to say, she really took the punishment like a trouper. "Factory Fight," Drunken Master II A lot of my fans feel this is the best film I've made in the past five years--and it really was a big hit--but I'm still a little disappointed with the way Drunken Master II turned out. It was a sequel to my first real blockbuster, of course, so maybe I'm just holding it to a higher standard. Anyway, the film began with veteran Shaw Brothers director Lau Kar-leung at the helm, but he and I had different ideas about action. It's pretty obvious how our philosophies contrast if you look at the fights at the beginning of the film and the one that ends it, which I choreographed and directed by myself. His ideas are very traditional, almost like classical music; mine are more like jazz. My main opponent in this fight is Kenneth Lo, who's my friend and bodyguard in real life. He was a champion kickboxer before going into the movies, and you can tell from the lightning speed of his leg work. To face Kenneth's Thai boxing, I use Choy Li Fut, a hybrid kung fu style that blends Northern and Southern techniques--as well as some of the "Drunken kung fu" that everyone expects to see in a movie called Drunken Master II! In fact, at the very end of the scene, I actually drink industrial-strength alcohol, which gives me the strength (and tolerance for pain) to finally win the fight. "Come Drink with Me," Drunken Master I face off in the finale of my first big box-office smash against Hwang Jang Lee, a Korean martial artist who is one of the greatest kickers in the history of kung fu cinema. It's an intense and unusual fight, featuring my comical "Eight Drunken Fairies" drunken-style fighting against Hwang's tae kwon do: fast, funny, and furious. "Jet Fighter, Part Two," Dragons Forever In my opinion, the final fight of this movie is one of the best-shot action sequences that Samo has ever directed. The pacing of my second battle with Benny "The Jet" Urquidez is wonderful, too, beginning slow with each of us sizing up the other while we take off our shirts and circle warily, and then building tremendous momentum into a whirlwind of kicks and punches. Truly a classic kung-fu moment. If I say so myself. "Child's Play," Police Story II An example of intricate prop fighting, in which I use playground equipment to take out a gang of thugs. Think of a complicated dance with a whole bunch of partners, over, under, through, and around swingsets, jungle gyms, and seesaws, and you'll get a small piece of the picture here. "Monks and Amazons," Armour of God A bizarre battle between me and a mob of angry monks, with a few warrior women thrown in for good measure. I developed my "one-man-against-the-world" fighting style in this crazy fight, battling outward in a spiral while using circular kicks to keep the cassock-wearing combatants at a distance. "Bar Bash," Project A It's us Coast Guard sailors against our hated rivals, the police squad, in a sensational bar-room brawl. The action is so fast, and there are so many combatants, that it's a little hard to follow everything that's going on. But this is as close as it gets to filming a real bar fight (even though we weren't actually out to kill each other); me and my stuntmen really were bouncing off the walls and furniture in this scene! "No Pain, No Gain," The Young Master In this epic, extended battle, I fight hapkido expert Whang Inn Sik. I was very impressed with his martial arts, and was determined to show the audience the power and beauty of this Korean fighting style. As a result, I shot the entire scene at a wide angle with relatively few cuts. To finally defeat the master, I throw out all of my traditional techniques, and just go at him like a lunatic, flailing my arms and smashing into him with my head, my fists, and every other part of my body. I do win in the end, but at a price: the last scene of the movie shows me in a complete body cast, waving goodbye with my fingers! "Turbo Charged," Armour of God II: Operation Condor I feel like I've got to include this fight just because it was so much trouble to stage, and because the idea behind it was so bizarre. Me and Vincent Lyn, an American martial artist (he's half-Chinese), battle in a giant wind tunnel-flying through the air, smashing against the back wall of the tunnel, and tumbling to the ground when the turbine is turned off. We did the whole thing wearing wires and harnesses, which were a pain to deal with (but how else were we going to pretend to be flying?). It's a campy scene, but it's a lot of fun. Especially when I fly at Vincent with my fist outstretched, shouting "Superman!" and use the thrust of the wind to punch him out _____________________ What I wouldn't do to join the brawl. Heh. Jackie's Top Ten Stunts "Shantytown Stakeout," Police Story "Sharickety village of old tin and wood shacks. When our trap is sprung too soon, the dragnet turns into a disaster, as the gangsters try to escape by driving through the mountain village. Not "through" as in "zigzagging around the buildings," but through as in smashing into, over, and through the buildings. I quickly commandeer a car and begin a crazed chase down the slope after them. The car is smashed (as is the village), so I chase the crooks on foot. When they hijack a double-decker bus, I grab an umbrella, take a running leap, and hook its handle onto the rim of an open window! Hanging desperately onto the umbrella, I try to pull myself into the bus, but am eventually thrown clear. Scrambling down to a lower part of the highway, I draw my pistol, order the speeding bus to stop...and it does, just inches away from my body. "The Great Glass Slide," Police Story This is where I finally put the drop on the gangsters once and for all. Of course, I had to put the drop on myself in order to do it--literally. After a glass-shattering fight inside a shopping mall, I spot my target several floors below, on the ground level of an open atrium. The only way to get down from my perch in time to do my policeman's duty is to take a flying leap into the air, grab ahold of a pole wrapped in twinkling Christmas lights, and slide a hundred feet to the ground--through a glass-and-wood partition, onto the hard marble tile. We had to do this in one take, so I crossed my fingers and prayed that I'd hit the stunt the first time (and that I'd hit the ground softly). I made my jump, grabbed the pole, and watched the twinkling lights crack and pop all the way down, in an explosion of shattering glass and electrical sparks. Then I hit the glass. And then I hit the floor. Somehow I managed to survive with a collection of ugly bruises ... and second-degree burns on the skin of my fingers and palms. "Clock Tower Tumble," Project A After a wild bicycle chase through Hong Kong's back alleys, I find myself high in the air, dangling from the hands of a giant clock face. With no other way to get down than fall, I let go--and crash through a series of cloth canopies before smashing into the ground. I had to do this one three times before I was satisfied with the way it looked. Trust me, I wouldn't want to do it a fourth time. "An Aerial Tour of Kuala Lumpur," Police Story III: Supercop By this time, all of you probably know Michelle Yeoh from Tomorrow Never Dies, the James Bond film. She resurrected her action career by costarring with me in Supercop, my first film with Stanley Tong. Michelle isn't a fighter; she never formally trained in martial arts, beginning her career as a ballet dancer. But one thing you can say for her is that she has the heart of a lionness. She did all of her own stunts in Supercop, because she threatened to beat me up if I wouldn't let her! Her most dangerous sequence in the movie was a scene in which she rides a motorcycle up a ramp, into the air, and onto the roof of a moving train. I have to admit that after I saw her do that stunt, I felt like I had something to prove. That's why we added this sequence, in which I jump from the roof of a building to a rope ladder swinging from the bottom of a hovering helicopter. The crooks flying the chopper try to knock me off the ladder by swinging me back and forth through the air and into buildings, moving at high speed above the streets of Malaysia's capital. They don't succeed--lucky for me. And the stunt looks almost as dangerous as it really was--lucky for all you action fans out there. "Going Down ..." Who Am I? This scene was billed by my producers as the "world's most dangerous stunt." They were probably telling the truth--although just about any stunt is dangerous, if you do it wrong. (The stunt that nearly killed me took place less than fifteen feet off the ground, after all.) Luckily, I did it right. Eventually. Even though one of my stuntmen proved it could be done (from a lower level, of course), it took me two weeks to get up the nerve to try it myself. The sequence begins with me fighting it out with some thugs on the top of a very tall building in Rotterdam, Holland. After battling with them around the roof, and nearly falling off once or twice, I finally take the quickest possible trip to the sidewalk below--sliding down the side of the building, which is slanted nearly forty-five degrees, all the way to the ground. Twenty-one stories. If I ever have an amusement park, I'll be sure to turn this stunt into a ride. "The Walls Come Tumblin' Down," Project A II I saw Buster Keaton do this in Steamboat Bill, Jr., so of course I had to do it too. After running down the face of a ceremonial facade that's in the process of falling over, I narrowly escape being crushed by standing in the right place at the right time--with my body going through an opening in the facade as it crashes down right over me. It's all in the timing. "No Way to Ride a Bus," Police Story II Another chase sequence--this time running along the tops of moving buses, while narrowly dodging signs and billboards that pass overhead and around me. At the end of the chase, I leap through a glass window.... Unfortunately, I chose the wrong window as my target, and instead of hitting prop glass, I smashed through a real pane. Which left me in real pain. "Down, Down, and Away," Armour of God I did this stunt just weeks after recovering from my near-fatal fall and serious brain surgery. The show must go on. My character, Asian Hawk, is racing to get away from angry natives (I've just stolen a priceless religious artifact from them, so they have good reason to be angry). Over a cliff I go ... landing on top of a huge hot air balloon, safe and sound. I did this stunt by parachuting from a plane. Which didn't make it any safer. "Roller Boogie," Winners and Sinners I'm not really the star of the "Lucky Stars" movies--I did the films mostly because of Samo. (Well, it helped that the movies were box office hits.) As a result, I don't get much screen time, which is fine, because the rest of the cast is talented and hilarious. This scene gave me a chance to shine, though--using the roller-skating skill I learned for The Big Brawl in a chase sequence on a crowded highway. The wildest part of the sequence has me rolling over a Volkswagen Beetle, and then under an eighteen-wheeler truck rig. That's one way of beating rush hour traffic. "Cycle Thriller," Armour of God II: Operation Condor We intended Operation Condor to be epic in every way: big fights, big budget, and, of course, big stunts. There's a chase sequence toward the beginning of the movie that stands as one of my best ever. After racing through the streets of Madrid on the back of a motorcycle, I find myself headed for the waterfront with nowhere to go but into the sea. Luckily, I spot a cargo net hanging from a crane at the edge of the docks--so I gun the engines and head full-speed toward the end of the pier in a deadly game of chicken with my pursuers. They're forced to veer off and crash into stacked piles of crates, while I ride my cycle off the pier and into the air, leaping up to grab hold of the net at the very last minute. What a waste of a good bike. |
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