Jackie Chan

Jackie Chan(born : Chan Kong-sang, 陳港生; 7 April 1954), in Victoria Peak, in the former Crown colony of Hong Kong. Since his parents worked for the French Consul to Hong Kong, Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the consul's residence in the Victoria Peak district. Chan is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, filmmaker, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer.

In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1960s and has appeared in over
100 films. Chan has received stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. As a cultural icon, Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, cartoons, and video games. Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred.

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. In 1960, his father immigrated 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. Chan trained rigorously for the next decade, excelling in martial arts and acrobatics. 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. Chan became close friends with fellow group members Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, the three of them later to be known as the Three Brothers or Three Dragons.

Upon his graduation in 1971, Chan found work as an acrobat and a movie stuntman, most notably in Fist of Fury (1972), starring Hong Kong's resident big-screen superstar, Bruce Lee. For that film, he reportedly completed the highest fall in the history of the Chinese film industry, earning the respectful notice of the formidable Lee, among others.

After Lee's tragic, unexpected death in 1973, Chan was singled out as a likely successor of his mantle as the king of Hong Kong cinema. To that end, he starred in a string of kung fu movies with Lo Wei, a producer and director who had worked with Lee. Most were unsuccessful, and the collaboration ended in the late 1970s. By that time, Chan had decided that he wanted to break out of the Lee mold and create his own image. Blending his martial arts abilities with an impressive nerve—he insisted on performing all of his own stunts—and a sense of screwball physical comedy reminiscent of one of his idols, Buster Keaton, Chan found his own formula for cinematic gold.

In 1998, Chan released his final film for Golden Harvest, Who Am I? After leaving Golden Harvest in 1999, he produced and starred alongside Shu Qi in Gorgeous a romantic comedy that focused on personal relationships and featured only a few martial arts sequences.Chan then helped create a PlayStation game in 2000 called Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, to which he lent his voice and performed the motion capture. He continued his Hollywood success in 2000 when he teamed up with Owen Wilson in the Western action comedy Shanghai Noon which was also a box office success and spawned the sequel Shanghai Knights (2003). He reunited with Chris Tucker for Rush Hour 2 (2001) which was an even bigger success than the original and experimented with special effects with The Tuxedo (2002) and The Medallion (2003). Despite the success of these films Chan became frustrated with Hollywood over the limited range of roles and lack of control over the film-making process.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).

On 22 June 2009, Chan left Los Angeles to begin filming The Karate Kid, a remake of the 1984 original, in Beijing. The film was released in America on 11 June 2010 and sees Chan's first dramatic American film. In the film, he plays Mr. Han, a kung fu master and maintenance man who teaches Jaden Smith's character, Dre, kung-fu so he can defend himself from school bullies. In Chan's next movie, Shaolin, he plays the cook of the temple instead of one of the major characters. Jackie Chan's 100th film "1911" will be released in October 2011. He is both the co-director and star of the movie. Jackie Chan wins Favorite Buttkicker award at the Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards in 2011 for "The Karate Kid."