Age, Biography and Wiki
Jackie Chan was born on April 7, 1954, in Victoria Peak, Hong Kong, to parents who were refugees from the Chinese Civil War. Raised in the consul’s residence where his parents worked for the French ambassador, Chan’s early life was marked by discipline and hardship. He attended Nah-Hwa Primary School but struggled academically, leading his parents to enroll him at the China Drama Academy, where he trained rigorously in martial arts and acrobatics for ten years. Chan’s rise to stardom began with his work as a stuntman and later as a leading man in Hong Kong’s film industry, eventually breaking through to international fame in the 1980s and 1990s.
| Occupation | Fashion Designers |
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| Date of Birth | 7 April 1954 |
| Age | 71 Years |
| Birth Place | British Hong Kong |
| Horoscope | Aries |
| Country | Hong Kong |
Height, Weight & Measurements
- Height: 1.72 meters (5 feet 7.5 inches)
- Weight: Approximately 67 kg (147 lbs)
- Physical Measurements: Not officially listed, but recognized for his athletic build and agility
Chan has been injured frequently when attempting stunts; many of them have been shown as outtakes or as bloopers during the closing credits of his films. He came closest to death filming Armour of God when he fell from a tree and fractured his skull. Over the years, he has dislocated his pelvis and also broken numerous parts of his body, including his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, ankle, and ribs. Promotional materials for Rumble in the Bronx emphasized that he performed all of the stunts, and one version of the movie poster even diagrammed his many injuries.
| Height | 72 m |
| Weight | 147 lbs |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Jackie Chan married actress Lin Feng-jiao (also known as Joan Lin) in 1982. The couple has one son, Jaycee Chan, who is also an actor. There have been no public reports of Jackie Chan being in other relationships since his marriage. He is not publicly dating anyone currently.
In circa 1937, Chan's father, originally named Fang Daolong, briefly worked as a secret agent for Lieutenant General Dai Li, the chief spy in Kuomintang-ruled China. For fear of being arrested by the communist government, Chan's father fled to British Hong Kong in the 1940s and changed his surname from Fang to Chan. Chan was his wife Chan Lee-lee's surname. Chan discovered his father's identity and changed his Chinese name to Fang Shilong (房仕龍) in the late 1990s, the name he would have been named according to his kin's genealogy book, which allegedly traces back to Tang dynasty statesman Fang Xuanling. Chan's ancestral roots are located in Wuhu, Anhui.
Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the French consul's residence in the Victoria Peak, British Hong Kong, as his father worked as a cook there. 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 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. 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 (元樓) in homage to his master. 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. 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. As a martial artist, Chan is also skilled in multiple forms of Kung fu. He is also known to have trained in other martial art forms such as Karate, Judo, Boxing, Taekwondo, and Jeet Kune Do.
Chan joined his parents in Canberra, Australia in 1971, where he briefly attended Dickson College and worked as a construction worker. A fellow builder named Jack took Chan under his wing, thus earning Chan the nickname of "Little Jack", later shortened to "Jackie", which has stuck with him ever since.
He began his film career by appearing in small roles at the age of five as a child actor. 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. The following year, the young actor appeared in extras of Yen Chun's 1964 film Liang Shan Po and Chu Ying Tai and had a small role in King Hu's 1966 film Come Drink with Me. 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.
Filming of The Forbidden Kingdom, Chan's first on-screen collaboration with fellow Chinese actor Jet Li, was completed on 24 August 2007 and the movie was released in April 2008. The movie featured heavy use of effects and wires. Chan voiced Master Monkey in Kung Fu Panda (released in June 2008), appearing with Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, and Angelina Jolie. In addition, he has assisted Anthony Szeto in an advisory capacity for the writer-director's film Wushu, released on 1 May 2008. The film stars Sammo Hung and Wang Wenjie as father and son.
In November 2007, Chan began filming Shinjuku Incident, a dramatic role featuring no martial arts sequences with director Derek Yee, which sees Chan take on the role of a Chinese immigrant in Japan. The film was released on 2 April 2009. According to his blog, Chan discussed his wishes to direct a film after completing Shinjuku Incident, something he has not done for a number of years. The film was expected to be the third in the Armour of God series, and had a working title of Armour of God III: Chinese Zodiac. The film was released on 12 December 2012. Because the Screen Actors Guild did not go on strike, Chan started shooting his next Hollywood movie The Spy Next Door at the end of October in New Mexico. In The Spy Next Door, Chan plays an undercover agent whose cover is blown when he looks after the children of his girlfriend. In Little Big Soldier, Chan stars alongside Leehom Wang as a soldier in the Warring States period in China. He is the lone survivor of his army and must bring a captured enemy soldier Leehom Wang to the capital of his province.
In 1981, Chan met Taiwanese actress Joan Lin. Lin retired from acting after their marriage, but made a cameo in CZ12 (2012), in which she plays Chan's wife.
Chan had an extramarital affair with Elaine Ng Yi-Lei, who gave birth to their daughter, Etta Ng Chok Lam, on 18 January 1999. Shortly before Etta's birth, Ng publicly revealed Chan as the father, sparking a scandal. Chan held a press conference where he expressed regret over the affair but stated that he had "only committed a fault that many men in the world commit". In 2002, Ng moved from Hong Kong to Shanghai. She and her daughter attracted media attention for their financial struggles, family conflicts, and mental health issues. However, according to her lawyer, Chan refused to provide any assistance. Chan has never met his daughter since her birth. In 2017, when asked about her coming out as lesbian, he replied: "As long as she's happy."
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Jackie Chan’s net worth is estimated to be between $365 million and $400 million. This wealth comes from a combination of film earnings, brand endorsements, real estate, and business ventures. He continues to earn significant salaries—currently commanding between $10 million and $15 million per movie, with some sources citing annual earnings at his peak (early 2000s) close to $50 million.
One of the most recognizable and influential film personalities in the world, Chan was described by film scholar Andrew Willis in 2004 as perhaps "the most recognized star in the world." He has received fame stars on the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, as well as an honorary Academy Award in 2016. Chan has been referenced in various pop songs, films, television series, and video games. He has an award named after him, the Jackie Chan Action Movie Awards. He is an operatically trained vocalist who has released several pop music albums and performed theme songs for some of the films in which he starred. He is also a philanthropist and has been named one of the top 10 most charitable celebrities by Forbes magazine. In 2015, Forbes estimated his net worth to be $350 million, and as of 2016, he was the second-highest-paid actor in the world.
Career, Business and Investments
Film Career:
Jackie Chan has starred in over 150 films, including international blockbusters like Rush Hour, Police Story, Kung Fu Panda (voice), and the Karate Kid franchise. He is especially noted for performing his own stunts and for popularizing kung fu cinema globally.
Business Ventures:
Chan is the founder of several companies, including film production studios and fitness brands. He also owns extensive merchandise lines named after his films and persona.
Fang Shilong (born Chan Kong-sang; 7 April 1954), known professionally as Jackie Chan, is a Hong Kong actor and filmmaker, known for his slapstick, acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and innovative stunts, which he typically performs himself. With a film career spanning more than sixty years, he is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential martial artists in the history of cinema. Films in which he has had leading roles have grossed over $2.7 billion worldwide.
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 choreography work. Willie Chan offered him an acting role in a film directed by Lo Wei. Lo saw 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. His stage name was changed to 成龍 (literally "becoming the dragon", Sing4 Lung4 in Jyutping or rarely as Cheng Long in pinyin), to emphasize his similarity to Bruce Lee, whose stage name meant "Lee the Little Dragon" in Chinese. (Note that "dragon" in Lee's name referred to Lee's birth year being the Dragon zodiac, not the Chinese dragon.) The film was unsuccessful because Chan was not accustomed to Lee's martial arts style. Despite the film's failure, Lo Wei continued producing films with similar themes, but with little improvement at the box office.
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. 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. The same year, Chan then starred in Drunken Master, which finally propelled him to mainstream success.
Upon Chan's return to Lo Wei's studio, Lo tried to replicate the comedic approach of Drunken Master, producing and also showed new features at the time with Jackie as the Stunt Director Half a Loaf of Kung Fu and Spiritual Kung Fu. He also gave Chan the opportunity to make his directorial debut in The Fearless Hyena. When Willie Chan left the company, he advised Jackie to decide for himself whether or not to stay with Lo Wei. During the shooting of Fearless Hyena Part II, Chan broke his contract and joined Golden Harvest, prompting Lo to blackmail Chan with triads, blaming Willie for his star's departure. The dispute was resolved with the help of fellow actor and director Jimmy Wang Yu, allowing Chan to stay with Golden Harvest.
Willie Chan became Jackie's personal manager and firm friend, and remained so for over 30 years. He was instrumental in launching Chan's international career, beginning with his first forays into the American film industry in the 1980s. His first Hollywood film was The Big Brawl in 1980. Chan then played a minor role in the 1981 film The Cannonball Run, which grossed over US$100 million worldwide. Despite being largely ignored by North American audiences in favour of established American actors such as Burt Reynolds, Chan was impressed by the outtakes shown at the closing credits, inspiring him to include the same device in his future films.
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. Although Chan had left Golden Harvest in 1999, the company continued to produce and distribute for two of his films, Gorgeous (1999) and The Accidental Spy (2001). 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. A sequel, Shanghai Knights followed in 2003 and also featured his first on-screen fight scene with Donnie Yen. He reunited with Chris Tucker for Rush Hour 2 (2001), which was an even bigger success than the original, grossing $347 million worldwide. Chan experimented with the use of special effects and wirework for the fight scenes in his next two Hollywood films, The Tuxedo (2002) and The Medallion (2003), which were not as successful critically or commercially. In 2004, he teamed up with Steve Coogan in Around the World in 80 Days, loosely based on Jules Verne's novel of the same name. In 2004, film scholar Andrew Willis stated that Chan was "perhaps" the "most recognized star in the world".
His 100th movie, 1911, was released on 26 September 2011. Chan was the co-director, executive producer, and lead star of the movie. While Chan has directed over ten films over his career, this was his first directorial work since Who Am I? in 1998. 1911 premiered in North America on 14 October.
Chan has performed most of his own stunts throughout his film career, which are choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. The team was established in 1983, and Chan has used them in all his subsequent films to make choreographing easier, given his understanding of each member's abilities. 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.
The dangerous nature of his stunts makes it difficult to get insurance, especially in the United States where his stunt work is contractually limited. Chan holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Stunts by a Living Actor", which emphasizes that "no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions in which he performs all his own stunts".
Chan has been the subject of Ash's song "Kung Fu", Heavy Vegetable's "Jackie Chan Is a Punk Rocker", Leehom Wang's "Long Live Chinese People", as well as in "Jackie Chan" by Frank Chickens, and television shows Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Celebrity Deathmatch and Family Guy.
Chan was also the primary catalyst for the creation of review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, whose founder Senh Duong was his fan and created the website after collecting all the reviews of Chan's Hong Kong action movies as they were being released in the United States. In anticipation for Rush Hour, Chan's first major Hollywood crossover, he coded the website in two weeks and the site went live shortly before the release of Rush Hour.
On 18 April 2009, during a panel discussion at the annual Boao Forum for Asia, he questioned whether or not broad freedom is a good thing. Noting the strong tensions in Hong Kong and Taiwan, he said, "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want." Chan's comments prompted angry responses from several prominent figures in Taiwan and Hong Kong. A spokesman later said Chan was referring to freedom in the entertainment industry, rather than in Chinese society at large.
In December 2012, Chan caused outrage when he criticized Hong Kong as a "city of protest", suggesting that demonstrators' rights in Hong Kong should be limited. The same month, in an interview with Phoenix TV, Chan stated that the United States was the "most corrupt" country in the world, which in turn angered parts of the online community. Other articles situated Chan's comments in the context of his career and life in the United States, including his "embrace of the American film market" and his seeking asylum in the United States from Hong Kong triads.
In addition to his film production and distribution company, JCE Movies Limited, Jackie Chan owns or co-owns the production companies JC Group China, Jackie & Willie Productions (with Willie Chan) and Jackie & JJ Productions. Chan has also put his name to Jackie Chan Theater International, a cinema chain in China, co-run by Hong Kong company Sparkle Roll Group Ltd. The first—Jackie Chan-Yaolai International Cinema—opened in February 2010, and is claimed to be the largest cinema complex in China, with 17 screens and 3,500 seats. Chan expressed his hopes that the size of the venue would afford young, non-commercial directors the opportunity to have their films screened. Fifteen further cinemas in the chain were planned for 2010, throughout Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, with a potential total of 65 cinemas throughout the country proposed.
There is an urban legend called the Jackie Chan curse. ABC News reported in 2010 that the legend originated because "A slew of products sold in China bearing his name, smile and seal of approval have proven defective, prone to explosion, and in one case, potentially damaging to consumers' health." This led to a belief that any product or company which was endorsed by Jackie Chan would suffer setbacks. In 2016 the failure of fitness chain California Fitness was blamed on the curse. The curse was again invoked in 2021 when Evergrande Group suffered major losses following Chan's promotion of Evergrande Spring brand bottled water. However, Jackie Chan has also endorsed a number of products and companies which have not had issues.
Social Network
Jackie Chan maintains an active presence on social media, especially on platforms popular in Asia. He has millions of followers on Weibo and Facebook, where he shares updates on his film projects, charitable work, and personal life.
Starting as one of the Seven Little Fortunes at the China Drama Academy, where he was trained in acrobatics, martial arts and acting, Chan entered the Hong Kong film industry as a stuntman before making the transition to acting. His breakthrough came with the martial arts action comedy Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978). He then starred in similar action comedies such as Drunken Master (1978) and The Young Master (1980). He made his directorial debut with The Fearless Hyena (1979), which was a box office success. Throughout the 1980s, he was part of the "Three Dragons" along with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao; the three starred in six Hong Kong films together. Project A (1983) saw the official formation of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and established Chan's signature style of elaborate, dangerous stunts combined with martial arts and slapstick humor, a style he further developed in a more modern setting with Wheels on Meals (1984) and Police Story (1985). Rumble in the Bronx (1995), which had a successful worldwide theatrical run, brought Chan into the North American mainstream. By the mid-1990s, he was the most popular action movie star in Asia and Europe.
Chan gained Hollywood success for portraying Chief Inspector Lee in the American buddy cop action comedy film Rush Hour (1998), a role he reprised in two sequels. He went on to work both in American and Chinese films, appearing in the well-received Shanghai film series (2000–2003), New Police Story (2004), Rob-B-Hood (2006), Little Big Soldier (2010), and Shaolin (2011), among others. The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) marked his first collaboration with fellow martial arts star Jet Li. He has played martial arts mentor Mr. Han in two Karate Kid films, the 2010 remake The Karate Kid and Karate Kid: Legends (2025). For CZ12 (2012), he earned two Guinness World Records for "Most Stunts Performed by a Living Actor" and "Most Credits in One Movie". He played against type in the well-received films Shinjuku Incident (2009) and The Foreigner (2017). His voice acting work includes all three Chinese versions of Mulan (1998), the first three films in the Kung Fu Panda franchise (2008-2016), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023).
Chan produced a number of action comedy films with his opera school friends Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. The three co-starred together for the first time in 1983 in Project A, which introduced a dangerous stunt-driven style of martial arts that won it the Best Action Design Award at the third annual Hong Kong Film Awards. Over the following two years, the "Three Brothers" appeared in Wheels on Meals and the original Lucky Stars trilogy. In 1985, Chan made the first Police Story film, a crime action film in which Chan performed a number of dangerous stunts. It won Best Film at the 1986 Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1986, Chan played "Asian Hawk", an Indiana Jones-esque character, in the film Armour of God. The film was Chan's biggest domestic box office success up to that point, grossing over HK$35 million.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chan starred in a number of successful sequels beginning with Project A Part II and Police Story 2, which won the award for Best Action Choreography at the 1989 Hong Kong Film Awards. This was followed by Armour of God II: Operation Condor, and Police Story 3: Super Cop, for which Chan won the Best Actor Award at the 1993 Golden Horse Film Festival. In 1994, Chan reprised his role as Wong Fei-hung in Drunken Master II, which was listed in Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies. Another sequel, Police Story 4: First Strike, brought more awards and domestic box office success for Chan, but did not fare as well in foreign markets.
Chan finally succeeded in establishing a foothold in the North American market in 1995 with a worldwide release of Rumble in the Bronx, attaining a cult following in the United States that was rare for Hong Kong movie stars. The success of Rumble in the Bronx led to a 1996 release of Police Story 3: Super Cop in the United States under the title Supercop, which grossed a total of US$16,270,600. Chan's first huge blockbuster success came when he co-starred with Chris Tucker in the 1998 buddy cop action comedy Rush Hour, grossing US$130 million in the United States alone. This film made him a Hollywood star, after which he wrote his autobiography in collaboration with Jeff Yang entitled I Am Jackie Chan.
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. 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). 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).
In 2013, Chan starred in Police Story 2013, a reboot of the Police Story franchise directed by Ding Sheng, and it was released in China at the end of 2013. Chan's next film Dragon Blade was released in early 2015 and co-starred Hollywood actors John Cusack and Adrien Brody. In 2015, Chan was awarded the title of "Datuk" by Malaysia as he helped Malaysia to boost its tourism, especially in Kuala Lumpur where he previously shot his films. In early 2017, Chan's new film titled Kung Fu Yoga, a Chinese-Indian project, which also starred Indian actors Disha Patani, Sonu Sood and Amyra Dastur, was released. The film reunited Chan with director Stanley Tong, who directed a number of Chan's films in the 1990s. Upon release, the film was a huge success at the box office, and became the 5th highest-grossing film in China, one month after its release.
Chan had vocal lessons while at the Peking Opera School in his childhood. He began producing records professionally in the 1980s and has gone on to become a successful singer in Hong Kong and Asia. He has released 20 albums since 1984 and has performed vocals in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese and English. He often sings the theme songs of his films, which play over the closing credits. Chan's first musical recording was "Kung Fu Fighting Man", the theme song played over the closing credits of The Young Master (1980). At least 10 of these recordings have been released on soundtrack albums for the films. 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.
Police Story (1985) contained many large-scale action scenes, including an opening sequence featuring a car chase through a shanty town, Chan stopping a double-decker bus with his service revolver and a climactic fight scene in a shopping mall. This final scene earned the film the nickname "Glass Story" by the crew, due to the huge number of panes of sugar glass that were broken. During a stunt in this last scene, in which Chan slides down a pole from several stories up, the lights covering the pole had heated it considerably, resulting in Chan suffering second-degree burns, particularly to his hands, as well as a back injury and dislocation of his pelvis upon landing. Chan performed similarly elaborate stunts in numerous other films, such as several Police Story sequels, Project A Part II, the Armour of God series, Dragons Forever, Drunken Master II, Rumble in the Bronx, and the Rush Hour series, among others.
In the 2000s, the ageing Chan grew tired of being typecast as an action hero, prompting him to act with more emotion in his latest films. In New Police Story (2004), he portrayed a character suffering from alcoholism and mourning his murdered colleagues. To further shed the image of a "nice guy", Chan played an antihero for the first time in Rob-B-Hood (2006) starring as Thongs, a burglar with gambling problems. Chan plays a low-level gangster in 2009's Shinjuku Incident, a serious drama set in Tokyo about unsavory characters.
A number of video games have been based on, or featured, Jackie Chan. His film Wheels on Meals (called Spartan X in Japan) spawned the hit 1984 beat 'em up arcade game Spartan X (released as Kung-Fu Master in Western markets), and its sequel Spartan X 2 for the Nintendo Famicom console. Spartan X laid the foundations for the beat 'em up genre, and inspired other games including Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Street Fighter (1987). Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu was released in 1990 for the PC-Engine and Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1995, Chan was featured in the arcade game Jackie Chan The Kung-Fu Master. A series of Japanese video games were released on the MSX computer by Pony, based on several of Chan's films (Project A, Project A 2, Police Story, The Protector and Wheels on Meals). Other games based on Jackie Chan include Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, Jackie Chan Adventures and Jackie Chan J-Mat Fitness. Chan also inspired video game characters such as Lei Wulong in Tekken and the fighting-type Pokémon Hitmonchan.
On 25 June 2013, Chan responded to a hoax Facebook page created a few days earlier that alleged he had died. He said that several people contacted him to congratulate him on his recent engagement, and soon thereafter contacted him again to ask if he was still alive. He posted a Facebook message, commenting: "If I died, I would probably tell the world!"
Education
Jackie Chan’s formal education was limited. He attended Nah-Hwa Primary School but did not excel academically. At the age of seven, his parents sent him to the China Drama Academy, where he received ten years of rigorous training in martial arts, acrobatics, and performance arts.
Back in Hong Kong, Chan's films began to reach a larger audience in East Asia, with early successes in the lucrative Japanese market including Drunken Master, The Young Master (1980) and Dragon Lord (1982). The Young Master went on to beat previous box office records set by Bruce Lee and established Chan as Hong Kong cinema's top star. With Dragon Lord, he began experimenting with elaborate stunt action sequences, including the final fight scene where he performs various stunts, including one where he does a back flip off a loft and falls to the lower ground.
In 2010, he starred with Jaden Smith in The Karate Kid, a remake of the 1984 original. This was Chan's first dramatic American film. He plays Mr. Han, a kung fu master and maintenance man who teaches Jaden Smith's character kung fu so he can defend himself from school bullies. His role in The Karate Kid won him the Favorite Buttkicker award at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in 2011. In Chan's next movie, Shaolin, he plays a supporting role as a cook of a temple instead of one of the major characters.
Chan received his honorary Doctorate of Social Science degree in 1996 from the Hong Kong Baptist University. 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.
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. 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.
In the early 1980s, Jackie Chan began experimenting with elaborate stunt action sequences in films such as The Young Master (1980) and especially Dragon Lord (1982), which featured a pyramid fight scene that holds the record for the most takes required for a single scene, with 2900 takes, and the final fight scene where he performs various stunts, including one where he does a backflip off a loft and falls to the lower ground. In 1983, Project A saw the official formation of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and added elaborate, dangerous stunts to the fights and typical slapstick humor; at one point, Chan falls from the top of a clock tower through a series of fabric canopies. Critics have compared his comedic stunts in Project A to Buster Keaton, who was also known to perform his own stunts, although Chan himself had not watched Keaton's films until years after Project A released; according to Chan, Project A was an evolution of the action stunt work he had been doing in earlier kung Fu comedy films since The Young Master.
He has been cited as the inspiration for manga and anime such as Dragon Ball, which was particularly inspired by Drunken Master, and the fight scenes in Jackie Chan movies; the show pays homage with a character by the alias "Jackie Chun". Toriyama said he had a young Jackie Chan in mind for a live-action Goku, stating that "nobody could play Goku but him." Chan himself was a fan of the series, and had expressed some interest in adapting Dragon Ball into a live-action film, but said it would require "a lot of amazing special effects and an enormous budget."
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. Chan's greatest regret in life is not having received a proper education, inspiring him to fund educational institutions around the world. 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.
In 2016, Chan partnered with Asian Le Mans Series champion David Cheng to form a racing team in the series and the FIA World Endurance Championship. The two met in March 2015 and Chan told Cheng about his interest in motorsports and raised the possibility of starting a team. Together, the two formed Baxi DC Racing Alpine, the first mainland China-based operation in WEC. In October, leading into the 2016–17 Asian Le Mans Series season, the team was rebranded to Jackie Chan DC Racing and raced with liveries promoting Chan's movie Kung Fu Yoga. At the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans, the team became the first Chinese team to win its class (LMP2).
In June 2006, citing his admiration of the efforts made by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to help those in need, Chan pledged the donation of half his assets to charity upon his death. On 10 March 2008, Chan was the guest of honour for the launch, by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, of the Jackie Chan Science Centre at the John Curtin School of Medical Research of the Australian National University. Chan is also a supporter and ambassador of Save China's Tigers, which aims to save the endangered South China tiger through breeding and releasing them into the wild. Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Chan donated RMB ¥10 million to help those in need. In addition, he planned to make a film about the Chinese earthquake to raise money for survivors. In response to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Chan and fellow Hong Kong-based celebrities, including American rapper MC Jin, headlined a special three-hour charity concert, titled Artistes 311 Love Beyond Borders, on 1 April 2011 to help with Japan's disaster recovery effort. The 3-hour concert raised over $3.3 million. In January 2017, Chan donated $65,000 to help flood victims in Thailand.
Chan founded the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation in 1988 to offer scholarship and active help to Hong Kong's young people and provide aid to victims of natural disaster or illness. In 2005, Chan created the Dragon's Heart Foundation to help children and the elderly in remote areas of China by building schools, providing books, fees, and uniforms for children; the organisation expanded its reach to Europe in 2011. The foundation also provides for the elderly with donations of warm clothing, wheelchairs, and other items.
