Jackie Chan

Quick Facts

Date of Birth4/7/1954

Country of OriginHong Kong

OccupationStunt performer, Actor, Fight choreographer

Also known asChan Kong-sang, Cheng Long, Fang Shilong, Sing Lung

Biography

Jackie Chan, in Chinese 成龍, was born on 7 April 1954 in British Hong Kong under the name Chan Kong-sang (陳港生). He is an actor, stuntman and fight choreographer.

From 1960 he trained for ten years at the China Drama Academy of the Peking opera under master Yu Jim-yuen as a member of the Seven Little Fortunes group. He also practiced kung fu forms, karate, judo, boxing, taekwondo and Jeet Kune Do. He holds a black belt in hapkido from grandmaster Jin Pal Kim, and in 2025 received an honorary black belt from the World Karate Federation. He deliberately positioned his on-screen fighting style against Bruce Lee's: instead of widely held arms and fluid movement, he chose a tight stance and jerky movements.

As a stuntman he worked on Enter the Dragon (1973). His breakthrough came with Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (1978); the same year he starred in Drunken Master, followed by Drunken Master II (1994). He made his directorial debut in 1979 with The Fearless Hyena. In Dragon Lord (1982) he performed, among other things, a backward somersault from the second floor of a building, and in 1983 he founded the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Project A (1983) won the Hong Kong Film Award for best action choreography. He succeeded in Hollywood with Rush Hour (1998), and in 2010 starred in The Karate Kid.

He holds the Guinness World Record for the most stunts performed by a living actor; in the course of them he suffered, among other injuries, a fractured skull and a dislocated pelvis. In 2016 he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.

Associated Martial Arts

Filmography

A screen role does not mean the person actually practises the art — that is listed above.