Jackie Chan Trivia: 75 interesting facts about the actor!

Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong martial artist, actor, film, director, producer, stuntman and singer. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about him!

1.Chan Kong-sang was born 7 April 1954.

2. He was born in British Hong Kong, as Chan Kong-sang, to Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, refugees from the Chinese Civil War.

3. His mother or parents nicknamed him Pao-pao Chinese: 炮炮 (“Cannonball”) because the energetic child was always rolling around.

4. His parents worked for the French ambassador in Hong Kong, and Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the consul’s residence in the Victoria Peak district.

5. Jackie Chan attended the Nah-Hwa Primary School on Hong Kong Island, where he failed his first year, after which his parents withdrew him from the school.

6. In 1960, his father emigrated to Canberra, Australia, to work as the head cook for the American embassy, and Chan was sent to the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School run by Master Yu Jim-yuen.

7. Jackie Chan trained rigorously for the next decade, excelling in martial arts and acrobatics.

8. He eventually became part of the Seven Little Fortunes, a performance group made up of the school’s best students, gaining the stage name Yuen Lo in homage to his master.

9. Jackie Chan became close friends with fellow group members Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, and the three of them later became known as the Three Brothers or Three Dragons.

10. After entering the film industry, Chan along with Sammo Hung got the opportunity to train in hapkido under the grand master Jin Pal Kim, and Chan eventually attained a black belt.

11. Jackie Chan also trained in other styles of martial arts such as karate, judo, taekwondo, and Jeet Kune Do.

12. He began his career by appearing in small roles at the age of five as a child actor.

13. At age eight, he appeared with some of his fellow “Little Fortunes” in the film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar (1962) with Li Li-Hua playing his mother.

14. Jackie Chan appeared with Li again the following year, in The Love Eterne (1963) and had a small role in King Hu’s 1966 film Come Drink with Me.

15. In 1971, after an appearance as an extra in another kung fu film, A Touch of Zen, Chan was signed to Chu Mu’s Great Earth Film Company.

16. At seventeen, he worked as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon under the stage name Chan Yuen Lung

17.  He received his first starring role later that year in Little Tiger of Canton that had a limited release in Hong Kong in 1973.

18. In 1975, due to the commercial failures of his early ventures into films and trouble finding stunt work, Chan starred in a comedic adult film All in the Family in which Chan appears in his first nude sex scene.

19. It is the only film he has made to date without a single fight scene or stunt sequence.

20. Jackie Chan later also appeared in one other sex scene, in Shinjuku Incident.

21. Jackie Chan joined his parents in Canberra in 1976, where he briefly attended Dickson College and worked as a construction worker.

22. A fellow builder named Jack took Chan under his wing, thus earning Chan the nickname of “Little Jack” that was later shortened to “Jackie”, and the name Jackie Chan has stuck with him ever since.

23. In the late 1990s, Chan changed his Chinese name to Fong Si-lung , since his father’s original surname was Fong

24. 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 work.

25. Willie Chan offered him an acting role in a film directed by Lo Wei. Lo had seen 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.

26. His stage name was changed to Sing Lung literally “become the dragon to emphasise his similarity to Bruce Lee, whose stage name meant “Little Dragon” in Chinese.

27. The film was unsuccessful because Chan was not accustomed to Lee’s martial arts style

28. Despite the film’s failure, Lo Wei continued producing films with similar themes, but with little improvement at the box office.

29. Jackie Chan’s first major breakthrough was the 1978 film Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, shot while he was loaned to Seasonal Film Corporation under a two-picture deal.

30. Director Yuen Woo-ping allowed Chan complete freedom over his stunt work. The film established the comedic kung fu genre, and proved refreshing to the Hong Kong audience.

31. Chan then starred in Drunken Master, which finally propelled him to mainstream success

32. Despite the success of the Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon films, Chan became frustrated with Hollywood over the limited range of roles and lack of control over the filmmaking process.

33. In response to Golden Harvest’s withdrawal from the film industry in 2003, Chan started his own film production company, JCE Movies Limited (Jackie Chan Emperor Movies Limited) in association with Emperor Multimedia Group (EMG).

34. His films have since featured an increasing number of dramatic scenes while continuing to succeed at the box office; examples include New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005) and the hit film Rob-B-Hood (2006)

35. Jackie Chan’s next release was the third instalment in the Rush Hour series: Rush Hour 3 in August 2007. It grossed US$255 million.

36. However, it was a disappointment in Hong Kong, grossing only HK$3.5 million during its opening weekend.

37. Jackie Chan had vocal lessons whilst at the Peking Opera School in his childhood.

38. He began producing records professionally in the 1980s and has gone on to become a successful singer in Hong Kong and Asia.

39. He has released 20 albums since 1984 and has performed vocals in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese and English.

40. He often sings the theme songs of his films, which play over the closing credits.

41. Jackie Chan’s first musical recording was “Kung Fu Fighting Man”, the theme song played over the closing credits of The Young Master (1980).

42. At least 10 of these recordings have been released on soundtrack albums for the films.

43. His Cantonese song Story of a Hero (英雄故事) (theme song of Police Story) was selected by the Royal Hong Kong Police and incorporated into their recruitment advertisement in 1994.

44. Jackie Chan received his Doctor of Social Science degree in 1996 from the Hong Kong Baptist University.

45. In 2009, he received another honorary doctorate from the University of Cambodia,and has also been awarded an honorary professorship by the Savannah College of Art and Design in Hong Kong in 2008.

46. Prof Chan is currently a faculty member of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he teaches the subject of tourism management.

47. As of 2015, he also serves as the Dean of the Jackie Chan Film and Television Academy under the Wuhan Institute of Design and Sciences.

48. Jackie Chan has performed most of his own stunts throughout his film career, which are choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team.

49. He has stated in interviews that the primary inspiration for his more comedic stunts were films such as The General directed by and starring Buster Keaton, who was also known to perform his own stunts. Since its establishment in 1983, Chan has used the team in all his subsequent films to make choreographing easier, given his understanding of each member’s abilities.

50. Jackie Chan and his team undertake many of the stunts performed by other characters in his films, shooting the scenes so that their faces are obscured.

51. Chan has received worldwide recognition for his acting and stunt work. His awards include the Innovator Award from the American Choreography Awards and a lifetime achievement award from the Taurus World Stunt Awards.

52. He has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars.

53. Jackie Chan has a sponsorship deal with Mitsubishi Motors that has resulted in the appearance of Mitsubishi cars in a number of his films. Furthermore, Mitsubishi launched a limited series of Evolution cars personally customised by Chan.

54. A number of video games have featured Chan. Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu was released in 1990 for the PC-Engine and NES.

55. Chan says he has always wanted to be a role model to children, and has remained popular with them due to his good-natured acting style. He has generally refused to play villains and has been very restrained in using swear words in his films – he persuaded the director of Rush Hour to take “fuck” out of the script.

56. Jackie Chan’s greatest regret in life is not having received a proper education, inspiring him to fund educational institutions around the world.

57. He funded the construction of the Jackie Chan Science Centre at the Australian National University and the establishment of schools in poor regions of China.

58. Jackie Chan is a spokesperson for the Government of Hong Kong, appearing in public service announcements.

59. In a Clean Hong Kong commercial, he urged the people of Hong Kong to be more considerate with regards to littering, a problem that has been widespread for decades.

60. Furthermore, in an advertisement promoting nationalism, he gave a short explanation of the March of the Volunteers, the national anthem of the People’s Republic of China.

61. When Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005, Chan participated in the opening ceremony.

62. In the United States, Chan appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in a government advert to combat copyright infringement and made another public service announcement with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca to encourage people, especially Asian people, to join the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

63. Construction has begun on a Jackie Chan museum in Shanghai.

64. In November 2013 a statue of Chan was unveiled in front of what is now known as the JC Film Gallery, scheduled to open in the spring of 2014.

65. In 2015, a made-up word inspired by Chan’s description of his hair during an interview for a commercial, duang, became an internet viral meme in China. The Chinese character for the word is a composite of two characters of Chan’s name.

66. In 2009, Chan was named an “anti-drug ambassador” by the Chinese government, actively taking part in anti-drug campaigns and supporting President Xi Jinping’s declaration that illegal drugs should be eradicated, and their users punished severely.

67. In 2014, when his own son Jaycee was arrested for cannabis use, he said that he was “angry”, “shocked”, “heartbroken” and “ashamed” of his son.

68. In April 2016, Chan was named in the Panama Papers.

69. He founded the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation in 1988, to offers scholarship and active help to Hong Kong’s young people and provide aid to victims of natural disaster or illness.

70. His height is 1,74 metres!