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Webmaster comment: An
interesting Jackie Chan interview where he tells the TRUE story of his marriage with
Ah-Jiao!!
(instead of this crap that Jeff Yang wrote in the book "Jackie Chan - My Life in
Action")
The part about Feng-Jiao is printed in brown.
This Isn’t a Cartoon: I
get Hurt!
By Gail Buchalter,
"Parade" magazine (USA) 29 July 2001, pg. 4-7
I HATE VIOLENCE " SAID Jackie
Chan, one of the biggest action film stars in the world. "In my movies, I want to
show my fans that I love action but not violence." With nearly 70 motion pictures to
his credit, Chan is the largest box-office draw in Asia. In 1996, he finally launched his
successful entry into Hollywood with Rumble in the Bronx, then followed it with the action
hits Rush Hour (1998) and Shanghai Noon (2000). Next month, the quick-fisted Chan is
paired again with the fast-talking Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 2. Given Chan's popularity as
a martial-arts star, his attitude toward violence seemed surprising--until he explained
his childhood. Forty-seven years ago, he said, he was delivered by cesarean surgery in
Hong Kong, but his father didn't have the $200 to pay the British physician. So he offered
his son (born Chan Kong-sang) as payment. Friends intervened and insisted on lend- ing his
father the money. "My dad was a cook, and my mom was a maid in the French Embassy in
Hong Kong," Chan said. 'We lived there. I would cry a lot, and my mom would have to
take me out in the middle of the night so I wouldn't wake anyone. A friend of theirs told
them about the China Drama Academy. I visited it and begged my parents to let me
stay."
The academy was a traditional training ground for Peking opera, an ancient
performance art that combines music, dance and drama. There, Chan, then 7, learned kung
fu, acrobatics, acting, singing-and discipline. The first three days were fun, he said.
Then he received his first beating. "I remember dropping a piece of rice on the
floor, and the teacher caned me," said Chan, one of 50 boys and girls who slept on
the floor for just five hours a night and got little to eat but plenty of punishment.
"I was beaten almost every day. I never forgot how it felt. It made me never want to
hit anyone. I don't want children to think it's OK to beat someone up." But his
parents had signed a contract with the school, effectively making their son an indentured
servant. A few years later, his mother joined his father in Australia, where he had found
work at the American Embassy. "At first I was a little angry at being left by
myself," Chan said, "but I got used to it."
Chan underwent brutal training-throwing 1,000 punches in a row and then launching
500 kicks. But he excelled. His acting and singing talents equaled his kung fu and
acrobatic abilities, and he was chosen to be a member of The Seven Little Fortunes, a
group that performed Peking opera. Unfortunately, it was a dying art form. Kung fu movies,
however, were on the rise. Soon Chan and, his schoolmates were hired to do dangerous
stunts in these films. But their master would take nearly all the money his students had
earned, leaving Chan and the others penniless. His own poverty helped Chan better
understand his parents' plight. "They were so poor that they worried about feeding
me," Chan said. "My father had to eat tofu for two years so he could pay back
his friends after I was born. My mother used to carry hot water in buckets to my school to
wash me. They thought they were giving me a better life, putting me in that school. For
that, I wanted to make them proud."
Chan's contract finally ran out when he was 17. His father then telephoned to say
he and his mother wanted him to come to Australia. But Chan insisted he wanted to stay in
Hong Kong and make movies. "For many years I didn't think I needed my mother or
father," Chan recalled. "Then I needed help, and my father was there. When I
left school, he knew I had nowhere to live. So he bought me an apartment. He took all the
money he had saved for 10 years and spent it in one day--on me.”
The highly disciplined Chan worked nonstop to show his gratitude. At 18, he became
the youngest stunt coordinator in Hong Kong. A few years later, he formed the Jackie Chan
Stunt Team, a revolving group of 20 actors that he still uses in all his films.
He also began starring in films-violent films. But as his fame grew, Chan shunned
the macho martial-arts tradition that Bruce Lee had popularized. Instead, Chan opted for
slapstick. He'd playfully wince after landing a punch or bumble his way into and out of
fights. “I love to make people laugh," Chan said. "I was always
happy-go-lucky. When I was young, I would even make fun of myself when the master was
hitting me."
That's probably why, Chan said, he was inspired by the comedic talents of silent
film stars Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton more than the martial-arts prowess of Bruce Lee,
with whom he worked in The Chinese Connection (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973). "I
never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee' " said Chan. 'I didn't want people being
killed and lots of blood in my movies. I had my own style. When I became famous, I learned
that children learn from me. So I create action that looks like ballet. And I put humor in
my films." Drunken Master (1978) was the first movie, he said, that captured his
vision of acrobatics and slapstick. “l I want to make money," Chan said,
"but more, I want to do something for society, especially for children.
To dissuade young people from trying his stunts at home, Chan said, "I use
outtakes [at the ends of his films] to show my fans that I get hurt. This isn't a
cartoon." He has been filmed catching on fire, getting hit by a helicopter while
dangling from a train and breaking his ankle.
Chan's humorous martial-arts films made him a huge star in Asia, which gave him the
power to direct and caught the attention of Hollywood. In 1980, Chan came to the U.S. to
star in The Big Brawl, a box-office disappointment, and Cannonball Run (1981), in which he
was miscast as a Japanese race-car driver. Disappointed, Chan returned to Hong Kong.
"Hollywood had turned me into something silly," he said. "I went home to
make my kind of movies."
Though he had a successful career in
Asia, Chan still fell short in one area of his life: romance, “I dated, but so
quick--date, date and boom, gone," he said. "Then I met Lin Feng-jiao, one of
Taiwan's most famous actresses. She was so nice, quiet and disciplined. She fell in love
with me, but I was always fooling around. Then suddenly she told me she was pregnant. She
gave up her career and went to Los Angeles to hide. I cared about her, but I did nothing.
I didn't know how to love.
"One day, a friend calls me from America and tells me I must come: 'She's
getting bigger and bigger.’I said, 'I'm busy.' He says I must come. I go and see her
She tells me, 'You can have your life. I just want our baby to have your name. 'I married
her, and the next day our son was born. Then I got on a plane and returned to work."
Chan said his wife understood that he had never known a family. "I thought to be a
good husband meant taking care of my family," he added. "She took care of my son
and always kept a home for me." Slowly he came to understand the price Lin Feng-jiao
had paid, just as he had with his own parents. "I love my wife," he said.
"Now I give her more of myself. I send a jet for her and my son when I'm working.
Hong Kong is my home base, but I stay with them in L.A." He joked: "She is not
used to my being around so much, and she kicks me out."
Chan also strives to set an example as a father. When his son, now 18, told him he
wanted to be an actor, Chan insisted he complete his education first. "When I'm with
him, I teach him by showing him" said Chan. "I have never hit my son. There are
times, I've wanted to," he added with a laugh, "but I know that type of
punishment is no good." Chan showed his son that he
wasn't a quitter when he returned to Holly- wood in 1996 to star in the hit film Rumble in
the Bronx, In addition to doing voiceovers for Jackie Chan Adventures, a Saturday-morning
cartoon, he soon will film Shanghai Knights (the sequel to Shanghai Noon) and then is set
to showcase his acting ability in The Tuxedo, a drama, being produced by Steven Spielberg.
For all his success, Chan has not forgotten the lean days in the opera school.
“The priest from the Red Cross would bring us milk and food every month," he
recalls "He would say, 'Jackie, don't thank me. Do this for someone else when you are
grown up."' In 1986, the actor created the Jackie Chan Charity Foundation, which
helps children's causes worldwide. He also has helped support his parents, who are now
retired. "Jackie is the Michael Jordan of Asia' said Brett Ratner, director of the
two Rush Hour films. "Everyone there calls him Big Brother, a term of respect. And
he, in turn, treats everyone with respect.”
One thing that has not changed since his childhood is Chan's ability to laugh at
life's hardships. "Now, whenever I see my father," Chan deadpanned, "I
always say to him, “Aren't you glad you didn't sell me?"