Jackie Chan
 Jackie Chan was born in Hong Kong in 1954 as Chan Kwong Sang. He took the screen name of Sing Lung and is known as Jackie Chan to the western world. When he was seven years old, he joined the Chinese Opera Research Institute and trained for the following ten years in Chinese theatre (Peking opera), martial arts, music and acrobatics. In the 70's he began work as a stunt-man and choreographer for the then expanding Hong Kong film industry. After the death of the legendary Bruce Lee, Jackie was groomed to take a lead role in the films which were fast becoming a global successes. Jackie Chan decided to radicalise filming and blended in comedy, martial arts and death defying stunts which he did himself. This of course resulted in many broken bones and injuries but this did not seem to deter him and has given his films a certain uniqueness not to be found in modern Hollywood films. He took up directing and writing his own films and perhaps his first breakthrough into the western market came with the release of his film Rumble In The Bronx (1995), which brought him considerable acclaim. Some of the other films he has starred in include The Canonball Run, The Protector, The Police Story and First Strike. His latest release in the western market is Mr. Nice Guy (3/98). In describing the appeal behind Chan's films, one has to admit that it is because he keeps us on the edge of our seats with his fast action martial arts, daring stunts and slap-stick comedy. Back to top
Bruce Lee
"With nothing but his hands, feet and a lot of attitude, he turned the little guy into a tough guy." -- Time
 Chinese martial arts teachers were very strict on tradition. They sometimes would not admit you into there class unless you were something special. It would have been even more difficult for non-Chinese. Because of this, Kungfu was shrouded in mystery to Westeners.
Bruce Lee totally broke with tradition. He'd teach to anyone that showed keen interest in learning martial arts whether he/she be Chinese or non-Chinese. Also, one thing many martial artists would not do is learn more than one style. Bruce Lee, on the other hand, learned much more than one style. Besides Wing Chun, he'd learn Karate, Tae Kwon Do, and others. An example is when he met with Jhoon Rhee, a master of TKD. Rhee showed Lee the sidekick in TKD and Lee, in fact, mastered it. When Lee created Jeet Kune Do, he combined all the strong points of each style and took out the weak points. Bruce didn't include high kicking in his fighting stlye before, only low kicks to the legs. Wing Chun doesn't kick high. But Chuck Norris, who met Bruce at the Long Beach Internationals, convinced Bruce to include High Kicks. Bruce Lee said, "Absorb what is useful, reject was is not." I might have not got the quote right but the point is, Bruce knew what he was doing, showing to the world he was a real martial artist devoted to what he was doing. He considered himself a martial artist first, then an actor.
Since 1973, the year Bruce Lee died and his famous motion picture Enter the Dragon was released, movies have been the single most influential factor behind the growing popularity of martial arts. Lee’s cinematic success spawned a global industry of the martial arts, and schools opened and flourished worldwide. During the 1970s more students took up the study of martial arts than at any time before or since. To those involved in martial arts, the years from 1972 to 1975 — the height of Lee’s popularity — are often cited as the Bruce Lee era.
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Jet Li
One of the world's biggest action stars, Jet Li Lian Jie was born on April 26, 1963 in the outskirts of Beijing, China in a town named Heibei. At a young age, he developed an interest in kung fu. Li's skills developed quickly, and he eventually won many competitions and even performed in front of US president Richard Nixon at the White House as part of the Chinese/US cultural exchange during the 1970's.
When Li was 19, he appeared in his first film, Shaolin Temple. Li was already regarded as a national hero for his athletic accomplishments, and the film (the first modern kung-fu movie made in China) shot him to superstardom in China. Nevertheless, he continued to appear in a series of popular Shaolin films, such as Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986) and also directed a film, Born to Defence (also 1986).
Wishing to find a wider audience for his work, Li moved to America and appeared in 1988's Dragon Fight. The film failed to find an audience, but Li seemed determined to stick it out. Eventually, he hooked up with noted producer/director Tsui Hark and the two -- using some of their own money -- created The Master in 1990. This time, the film (which had a miniscule budget and looked cheap even comapred to many US B-movies) didn't even reach a distributor; it was shelved until 1992. But Tsui and Li had formed a bond and Tsui convinced Li to come with him back to Hong Kong.
It was with Tsui that Li found international stardom. 1991's Once Upon a Time in China, which had Li taking on the role of Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-Hung, was a huge hit and is now regarded as one of the best martial arts movies ever. The following two sequels were also very popular, so it was quite a surprise when Li quit the series. Rumors abounded of everything from money disputes to Triad "involvement." At any rate, Li moved away from Wong Fei-Hung -- at least temporarily. After Swordsman II (1993), Li starred in another movie about a Chinese folk hero, Fong Sai Yuk (also 1993). The movie was again a huge hit, but perhaps more importantly, this was the first time he worked with Corey Yuen Kwai. Yuen would go on to work in some capacity on almost all of Li's next films, either as director or fight co-ordinator.
Li's next choice of a director to work with again puzzled many people. With Last Hero in China (1993), Li began a series of films that involved producer/director Wong Jing. Wong and Tsui Hark are quite the opposites in the HK film world; Tsui's films are known for being lavish, big-budget affairs with deep storylines, while Wong's (while equally popular with local audiences) are known for being cheap and full of sex, violence and crude humor. Many people (especially tabloid reporters) came up with many theories as to why Li worked with Wong. Some said it was due to Li's lingering resentment at Tsui; others surmised that Wong used Triad connections to "convince" Li to work with him. At any rate, Li's work during this period ranged from parody (Last Hero in China had Li once again playing Wong Fei-Hung, but for laughs, as in one scene where he dresses up in a rooster outfit) to romance (with 1994's The Bodyguard from Beijing, a HK remake of the Kevin Costner movie) to gun-fu action (such as 1995's High Risk, a movie "inspired" by Die Hard) and gained him a worldwide following of fans.
In 1994, Li, Yuen Woo-Ping and rising director Gordon Chan worked on a remake of Bruce Lee's classic Fist of Fury. Li was a bit hesitant to work on the film. He was hounded by billings of him being the "next Bruce Lee" his whole cinematic life, and Li knew (and himself felt) that Lee was somewhat of a "cinematic God" all around the world. Li, Chan and Yuen worked closely together to create a movie that would both satisfy fans of Bruce Lee, fans of Jet Li, and also (like the original film did) bring in new fans. They decided to forgo much of the wire-fu (a style which makes people seem as if they are flying, shooting fireballs or other exaggerated movements by using hidden wires and other camera tricks) Li used in most of his recent work (a result of being injured on the set on Once Upon a Time in China) and stick with a harder, more realistic style that was closer to Bruce Lee's own work. The result was Li's biggest success in years and what many people consider to be his best movie ever, Fist of Legend.
Like Jackie Chan before him, Li's initial US success led to a spate of re-releases of his older work. Unlike Chan, though, these films (for the most part) were released uncut, besides some title changes and re-dubbed soundtracks -- the US version of Once Upon a Time in China stands out as one of the best US video versions of a Hong Kong movie. In 2000, Li made his US starring debut with Romeo Must Die. While not a runaway success, RMD earned back three times its' budget and paved the way for future projects for Li, which may include an appearance in a sequel to The Matrix (which now seems unlikely since the producers only offered him US$3 million compared to his now-standard salary of $10 million) and a role as "Kato" in a remake of The Green Hornet. In 2001, Li struck at the US box office twice, with a film produced by La Femme Nikita director Luc Besson called Kiss of the Dragon, which premiered in the number four slot at the US box office (an impressive feat during the busy summer season) and garnered both critical and fan adulation, and The One which garnered Jet's biggest opening to date ($20 million) despite lukewarm reviews. Back to top
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