Bruceploitation is a cultural phenomenon mostly seen in the 1970s after the untimely death of martial artist and martial arts actor Bruce Lee in 1973. Movie makers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan hired a great number of Bruce Lee look-alike actors to star in many cheap knock-off martial arts movies to cash in on his success after his death.

“Bruceploitation” is a portmanteau of the name “Bruce” and exploitation film.

The Hong Kong action cinema scene was shocked when Bruce Lee died in a Hong Kong hotel on July 20th, 1973. At the time of Lee’s death, he was Hong Kong’s most famous martial arts actor. When Enter the Dragon became a box office success worldwide, many Hong Kong studios feared that a movie without their most famous star in it would not be financially successful, so some studios decided to play on Lee’s sudden international fame by making movies that vaguely sounded like Bruce Lee starring vehicles, with actors who looked like Lee changing their stage names to sound similar to “Bruce Lee”, such as Bruce Li and Bruce Le.

In a tactic similar to deceptive marketing, some of these films were advertised as genuine Bruce Lee movies when in fact they were not. This tactic was very successful in the mid-1970s when many of Bruce Lee’s earlier films such as Fist of Fury and The Big Boss were being released in “Chinese” Theaters in America after Bruce’s death, often with alternate and confusing names.

Bruce Lee’s stage name (not his real name) in Mandarin Chinese is Li Xiaolóng (???) which literally translates to “Lee Little Dragon”. After his death, many actors assumed Lee-like stage names. Bruce Li (?(Lí)?? from his real name Ho Chung Tao (???)), Bronson Lee, Bruce Chen, Bruce Lai, Bruce Le (?(Lu)?? from his real name Wong Kin Lung), (???)), Bruce Lei, Bruce Lie, Bruce Liang (also known as Bruce Leung), Bruce Ly real name Binhslee, Bruce Thai, Bruce K.A. Lea, Brute Lee, Myron Bruce Lee, Lee Bruce, and Dragon Lee were hired by studios to play Lee-styled roles.

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Chin Tsi-Ang (Traditional: ???; Simplified: ???; Pinyin: Qián Sìying; 1909-October 15, 2007), also Chin Tsi-(H)Ang and Chi Chi-Ang, was one among the earliest martial-arts actors of the Chinese film industry, and its first female star.[1] She debuted in Dream of South China (???) in 1925 at the age of 16, [2] and played a leading role in The Lady Swordfighter of Jiang-Nan (????, Jiangnan Nüxia) in 1930.[3][4][5]

Chin was born in Shanghai in 1909. When she was an infant, her parents were told by a fortune-teller that in order to avoid an early death, she would have to be brought up like a boy. She was therefore permitted to engage in activities usually reserved for males, although her gender sometimes had to be disguised. She began martial arts training at the age of 8, [6] later going on to perform all of her own stunts as well as choreograph scenes.

She married director Hung Chung-Ho, with whom she had seven children (one of her grandchildren is Sammo Hung), and having become a star in Shanghai, they moved to Hong Kong, where they formed the Sanxing Film Company, which specialized in wuxia and produced the first Fong Sai-Yuk film in 1938.[7] It existed until 1963, when the Chinese government requisitioned its properties.[8] Her husband died not long afterwards. She largely retired from filmmaking at this time, although she has since appeared in cameo roles, one of the most recent being in Kar Wai Wong’s In the Mood for Love at age 90.

Chin died in Hong Kong on October 15, 2007.[9]

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Carlos Ray “Chuck” Norris (born March 10, 1940) is an American martial artist, action star and television and film actor who is known for action roles such as Cordell Walker on Walker, Texas Ranger and for his iconically tough image and roundhouse kick.

Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, the son of Wilma (née Scarberry) and Ray Norris, who was a mechanic, bus driver, and truck driver.[1] Norris’ paternal grandfather (an immigrant) and maternal grandmother were of Irish descent, while his paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were Cherokee Native Americans.[2] Norris was named after Carlos Berry, his father’s minister.[3] He has two younger brothers, Wieland (deceased) and Aaron (a Hollywood producer). When Norris was sixteen, his parents divorced,[4] and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas and then Torrance, California, with his mother and brothers.[2] Norris describes his childhood as downbeat. He was nonathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. Other children taunted him about his mixed ethnicity, and Norris daydreamed about beating up his tormentors. Norris mentioned in his autobiography that his father had a very serious problem with drinking and “wasn’t there” a lot for him growing up. Norris admitted that he loved his father but did not like him. However, he professed that he only felt pity for the man because “that was just how he was, and he missed so much.”

He then joined the United States Air Force as an Air Policeman in 1958 and was sent to Osan Air Base, South Korea. It was there that Norris acquired the nickname Chuck and began his training in Tang Soo Do (tangsudo), an interest that led to black belts in that art and the founding of the Chun Kuk Do (“Universal Way”) form. He eventually created the education associations United Fighting Arts Federation and “KickStart” (formerly “Kick Drugs Out of America”), a middle school and high school–based program intended to give at-risk children a focus point in life through the martial arts. When he returned to the United States, he continued to act as an AP at March Air Force Base California. Norris was discharged in August of 1962. He worked for the Northrop Corporation and opened a chain of karate schools, which Chad McQueen, Steve McQueen’s son, attended.[2]

Norris was defeated in his first two tournaments, dropping decisions to Joe Lewis and Allan Steen and three matches at the International Karate Championships to Tony Tulleners. By 1967 Norris had improved enough that he scored victories over the likes of Lewis, Skipper Mullins, Arnold Urquidez, Victor Moore, Ron Marchini, and Steve Sanders. In early 1968, Norris suffered the tenth and last loss of his career, losing an upset decision to Louis Delgado. On November 24, 1968, he avenged his defeat to Delgado and by doing so won the Professional Middleweight Karate champion (non-contact) title, which he held for six consecutive years.[4] In 1969, he won Karate’s triple crown for the most tournament wins of the year, and the Fighter of the Year award by Black Belt Magazine.

It was also in 1969 that Norris made his acting debut in the Dean Martin movie The Wrecking Crew.

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The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of political and economic freedom than mainland China and Taiwan, and developed into a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world (including its worldwide diaspora) and for East Asia in general. For decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world (after Indian Cinema and Hollywood) and the second largest exporter. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-’90s and Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage.

In the West, Hong Kong’s vigorous pop cinema (especially Hong Kong action cinema) has long had a strong cult following, which has become large enough that it is now arguably a part of the cultural mainstream, widely available and imitated. This influence has been particularly heavy on recent Hollywood trends in the action genre.

Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little to no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It is a thoroughly commercial cinema: highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres like comedy and action, and relying heavily on formulas, sequels and remakes.

Hong Kong film derives a number of elements from Hollywood, such as certain genre parameters, a “thrill-a-minute” philosophy and fast pacing and editing. But the borrowings are filtered through elements from traditional Chinese drama and art, particularly a penchant for stylization and a disregard for Western standards of realism. This, combined with a fast and loose approach to the filmmaking process, contributes to the energy and surreal imagination that foreign audiences note in Hong Kong cinema.

As is common in commercial cinema, the industry’s heart is a highly developed star system. In earlier days, beloved performers from the Chinese opera stage often brought their audiences with them to the screen. For the past three or four decades, television has been a major launching pad for movie stardom, through acting courses and widely watched drama, comedy and variety series offered by the two major stations. Possibly even more important is the overlap with the Cantonese pop music industry. Many, if not most, movie stars have recording sidelines, and vice versa; this has been a key marketing strategy in an entertainment industry where American-style, multimedia advertising campaigns have until recently been little used (Bordwell, 2000). In the current commercially troubled climate, the casting of young Cantopop idols (such as Ekin Cheng and the Twins) to attract the all-important youth audience is endemic.

In the small and tightly knit industry, actors (as well as other personnel, such as directors) are kept very busy. During previous boom periods, the number of movies made by a successful figure in a single year could routinely reach double digit.

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Connie Chan Po-chu was born in 1947 in Guangdong, China to impoverished parents and at least 8 other siblings. To increase their children’s chances of surviving, Chan’s birth parents gave away some of their youngest to other families. As a result, Chan was adopted by Chan Fei-nung and his wife, Kung Fan-hung, who were renowned Cantonese opera stars. During the 1960s, Connie Chan was one of Hong Kong cinema’s most beloved teen idols. She made more than 230 films in a variety of genres: from traditional Cantonese opera and wuxia movies to contemporary youth musicals; action films to comedies; melodramas and romances. Owning to her popularity in addition to the extreme devotion of her fans, she was dubbed the “Movie-Fan Princess.” Her godfather is the late actor Cho Tat Wah. She has a son named Dexter Yeung, who stars in the 2008 TVB Series Wasabi Mon Amour and Moonlight Resonance.

At the age of five and a half she started learning Cantonese opera from her parents and later became an apprentice of Peking opera master Fen Juhua, who was one of the first wuxia actresses in Shanghai during the 1920s. When Connie was nine, she began performing onstage. One year later she and Leung Bo-chu (the daughter of the great comic actor and opera clown Leung Sing-po) were the leading stars of the Double Chu Opera Troupe. In 1958, Connie made her film debut in the Cantonese opera Madam Chun Heung-lin. The following year she played in two Mandarin-language productions for the MP&GI studio: as a widow’s daughter in Yue Feng’s melodrama For Better, For Worse and as a young boy in Tao Qin’s comedy The Scout Master. That same year she also played the role of a filial son in Breaking the Coffin to Rescue Mother.

During her teenage years, Connie appeared more and more frequently on the silver screen: at first mostly in Cantonese operas (often with the legendary Master Yam Kim-fai, who had taken Connie as her beloved student); but later almost exclusively in wuxia movies (usually in the company of veteran action stars Yu So Chow, Walter Tso Tat-wah, and perennial bad guy Sek Kin). She also joined the Sin-Hok Kong-luen Film Company’s stable of young stars (which included Suet Nei, Nancy Sit Ka-yin, and Kenneth Tsang Kong) and took part in director Chan Lit-ban’s groundbreaking adaptations of Jin Yong’s serialized novels, The Golden Hairpin (1963-64) and The Snowflake Sword (1964). Released in three and four parts, these films were blockbuster extravaganzas popular for their intricate plots, special effects, and complex action choreography. Two films in 1965 would give a boost to Connie’s career: The Six-Fingered Lord of the Lute (in which she played the lead male role and which was publicized with the creation of her very own fanclub) and The Black Rose (in which director Chor Yuen had the foresight to change her image by putting her in a contemporary role as a modern-day Robin Hood).

These two years were a diverse and prolific period during which Connie’s talent, skills, and popularity reached full bloom. In 1966, her most frequent onscreen partner was Josephine Siao, who had also studied opera under Fen Juhua. The two were often cast as disciples of the same master and sometimes—when Connie played the male lead —as young heroes in love. Capitalizing on their chemistry, veteran director Lee Tit gave them the lead roles in Eternal Love, his remake of a popular opera from the 1950s. Even more successful was Chan Wan’s Colourful Youth, which became the box office champ of the year and set the trend for Western-style musicals in Cantonese cinema. From then on, Connie and Josephine appeared increasingly in films with contemporary settings but less frequently in each other’s company. Both of them were paired off with a variety of leading men in a profusion of comedies, musicals, romances, and action movies. Movie-Fan Princess was a prototype combo of all four genres and, more significantly, the beginning of Connie’s four-year onscreen romance with her most popular leading man, Lui Kei. And then there was Lady Bond, Cantonese cinema’s answer to 007 that spawned three sequels and fueled the transition from traditional wuxia pictures to contemporary action movies.

Connie’s frenetic film output of the previous two years started to slow down a bit. Her contemporary action films had played themselves out and she settled down onscreen with leading man Lui Kei, who now became her most frequent costar in a medley of comedies, musicals, and romances—most of them directed by Wong Yiu and Chan Wan, who were responsible for the Chi-luen Film Company’s signature youth musicals. With the help of her mother, Connie founded her own film company in 1968. Hung Bo’s inaugural feature Teenage Love (1968) paired her with Lui Kei. Connie’s mother produced the film and she and Connie’s father had small roles. Love With a Malaysian Girl (1969) and Her Tender Love (1969), both written and directed by Lui Kei, were the only other films produced through Hung Bo. Within a year, Connie stopped making movies altogether and moved to San Francisco to finish her education. When she returned to Hong Kong in 1972, she made one last film with director Chor Yuen, who had recently signed on with Shaw Brothers. The Lizard, a Mandarin-language production, was Connie’s final farewell to the silver screen.

After an absence of more than 25 years, Connie Chan emerged from retirement in 1999 to star in a stage production based on the life of her Master, Yam Kim-fai. Sentimental Journey won great acclaim and broke records with its 100-performance run; it was brought back for a six-week revival in 2005. After Sentimental Journey, Connie starred alongside Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Carina Lau in the stage play Red Boat, which ran for 64 performances. The play is an homage to the Cantonese Opera troupes that traditionally traveled by boat through the Pearl River delta region of China. In 2003 she staged a series of spectacular concerts, delighting fans with her cherished film songs and some Cantonese opera classics; her guest stars included Petrina Fung Bo-bo, Nancy Sit Ka-yin, and Maggie Cheung Ho-yee (who played the character based on Connie in the TVB television series Old Time Buddy and the film Those Were the Days). On February 4, 2006 she performed brilliantly again; this time with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Later that year she starred with Adam Cheng in the stage play Only You, which ran for 70 performances. In January 2007 Connie was honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Hong Kong Drama Awards.

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Darren Shahlavi sometimes credited as Shahlavi (born August 5 1975) is a British actor from Stockport, Greater Manchester, England known primarily for playing bad guys in martial arts films such as Bloodmoon (1997) and Yuen Woo Ping’s Tai Chi Boxer aka Tai Chi 2 opposite Wu Jing. Shahlavi has starred in the Asian film series The Techno Warriors, and American films Hostile Environment, Sometimes a hero, Legion of the dead and the cult classic Beyond the Limits (2003), for German Horror master Olaf Ittenbach. Recently Shahlavi appeared opposite Eddie Murphy in Columbia pictures big screen remake of I-Spy directed by Betty Thomas, and independent features The Final Cut with Robin Williams and the notorious Uwe Boll’s film BloodRayne with Kristanna Loken and Sir Ben Kingsley. The name Shahlavi comes from his Persian heritage Shah meaning King and Lavi in Hebrew is ???? “Young Lion”

At the age of 7 Shahlavi started studying Judo in a rented acting theatre, and would arrive early to peek at the actors performing, after discovering Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan films he dreamed of being in action films and continued to train in Karate under Sensai Dave Morris and Horace Harvey, and Kick boxing and Muay Thai under 5 times World champion Ronnie Green and at Master Toddy ‘s gym in Manchester. When he was 16 Shahlavi started to pursue a career in film and got the attention Hong Kong action cinema expert Bey Logan in the early nineties, and according to Bey Logan’s commentary on the Tai Chi Boxer DVD, Shahlavi would spend time at Logan’s home watching and studying and copying martial art films from Logan’s personal collection. In an interview with the Persian mirror Shahlavi mentions Logan wrote a script for him to star in and off he went to Malaysia but upon arrival it became apparent there was no money in place, and Logan’s partner British Hung Gar Kung Fu expert and film star Mark Houghton put Shahlavi to work as a stuntman, he later moved to Hong Kong to pursue his career.

After moving to Hong Kong in the mid Nineties to pursue a career in action cinema Shahlavi was discovered by Famed martial arts choreographer and Director Yuen Woo Ping, who signed him to play the bad guy opposite Wu Jing in Tai Chi 2, at the time he was working as a nightclub bouncer and a bodyguard for visiting celebrities. After Tai Chi 2 was released in Hong Kong cinemas, Seasonal Films Corporation boss Ng See Yuen and director Tony Leung Siu-Hung saw potential in Shahlavi and signed him for their Hong Kong/US film Bloodmoon (1997), what the movie lacks it more than makes up for in the action scenes with Shahlavi as the villain and stars Gary Daniels and Chuck Jeffreys, and remains a favorite with hardcore martial arts movie fans.

Recently Shahlavi has moved into the Horror genre working with cult German gore master and splatter filmmaker Olaf Ittenbach who’s movies are often banned for their extreme and graphic violence, Shahlavi stars in and choreographed fights in the films Legion of the dead and Beyond the Limits (2003). Unfortunately these films are hard to get in their uncut form. Occasionally Shahlavi has done stunts in studio films such as Universal Studios Riddick, 20th Century Fox’s Night at the Museum and Warner Bro’s 300 film often making an onscreen cameo as an inside joke such as the sleeping guard who can’t fight in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale in which he was the Stunt double for Ray Liotta for the fighting scenes with Jason Statham which were choreographed by Ching Siu-Tung. In a recent interview with Shero Rauf Shahlavi has expressed his desire to get back to making Martial arts films and just completed work on a film with action star Mark Dacascos, and also appears in the Canadian TV show Intelligence (TV series) and as a Guest Star on the ABC Studios US Prime-time series Reaper (TV series).

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David Chiang Dai Wei (Chinese: ???/???) (29 June 1947) is a Hong Kong actor.

David Chiang was born in Suzhou, China on 29 June 1947. His Mother Hung Wei and Father Yim Dut were very popular Movie Stars. Young Chiang began his acting career at a very early age, appearing in black & white films while he was only 4 years old. “John” is Chiang`s real English name, while “David” was a stage name given to him by Director Chang Cheh. His brother Paul Chun starred in The Sand Pebbles.

In 1966, while working as a Stuntman and Fight Instructor for the acclaimed Shaw Brothers Studio, he was spotted by Director Chang Cheh. The Director immediately saw Potential & Screen Presence in the young actor & took David under his wing, slowly grooming him. The pair got along like father & son.

With Wang Yu`s sudden departure in 1969, Run Run Shaw and his Senior executives were searching for their next leading man to take the reins to satisfy the frenzy left from the departed Wang Yu. The movie impresario made Chiang an offer he could not refuse. With the guidance of Director Chang Cheh, Chiang won “The Best Actor” Award at the 16th Asian Film Festival in 1970 for his role in “Vengeance!”. In 1972, at the 18th Asian film Festival, Chiang was awarded the Golden Horse Award for “The Best Actor” in “Blood Brothers” & “The Most Contemporary” Award in 1973 at the 19th Asian Film Festival for “The Generation Gap”.

Chiang left Hong Kong with his mentor Chang Cheh and set up an Independent Production Company in 1973 known as Chang`s Scope Company. With the backing & blessings of Run Run Shaw, their films continued to be distributed through an enormous Shaw circuit. There, Chiang was able to try his hand at Directing, Producing and Script Writing. As the 70`s came to an end and the 80`s approached, Chiang continued to work his magic on the Silver Screen working with Directors Lee Han Chiang, Hsueh Li Pao, Ho Meng-hua and Chia-Liang Liu . 1980 was also the start of his first T.V Series The Green Dragon Conspiracy, followed by Princess Chang Ping and Dynasty which are all classics. In the mid 80s, Chiang worked along side his two brothers, Paul Chun & Derek Yee , Directing, Producing and Acting in the Comedy “Legend of the Owl”. Chiang`s talents in comedy also was showcased in the movie`s The Challenger and The Loot Directed by Eric Tseng . In late 80s into the 90`s Chiang successfully Directed movies : “Heaven Can Help”, “Silent Love”, “The Wrong Couples”, “Mr. Handsome”, “Double Fattiness”, “My Dear Son”, “Will of Iron” and “Mother of a Different Kind” . As 2000 approached, Chiang has continued to work in Movies & T.V series like : Election, Daisy, Revolving Doors Of Vengeance, Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion , Land of Wealth, The Family Link and the most recent 2007 T.V Series The Gem of Life. Chiang was nominated for “Best Supporting Actor” in 2006 for his TVB role in Revolving Doors of Vengeance.

In 2004, David Chiang was inducted in The Avenue of Stars , modeled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It is located along the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. It honours celebrities of the Hong Kong film industry.

With over 4 decades under his belt, Chiang is indeed an Icon and a Legend and is well regarded as one of Kung Fu`s Top Action Heroes .

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Donnie Yen Chi-Tan (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Zhen Zidan; born 27 July 1963) is a Chinese martial artist and actor, film director, fight choreographer, and producer. He is a well known film and television actor in Hong Kong and, more recently, in the West, having been featured in many movies with prominent, internationally known actors such as Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh.

Yen was born in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, the son of martial arts master Bow Sim Mark and Klysler, a newspaper editor.[1] He was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. His younger sister Chris Yen (Chi-Ching) is also an accomplished martial artist and rising actor, recently appearing in the independent film Adventures of Johnny Tao: Rock Around the Dragon.

From a young age, Yen was interested in martial arts of all kinds, experimenting with various styles, from Taekwondo to Wushu. After dropping out of school, Yen decided to stick with Wushu. He moved to Beijing to train further with the Beijing Wushu Team. In his initial training in Guangzhou, China, his instructor Mr. Lee Yu-Man demanded Donnie cut his hippie-style mullet as it was inappropriate. When he wanted to return to the United States, he made a side trip to Hong Kong and it was there that he met Yuen Woo-ping, a famous Hong Kong fight choreographer.

Yen’s first film role was at age 21 in 1984 in the film Xiao Tai Ji. The film revolved around Drunken Tai Chi, and although not a critical success, the film helped Yen to achieve further notability. Over the years, Yen would send martial arts magazines and books from North America back to Mr. Lee in China. Sometime after filming Drunken Tai Chi and Tiger Cage, Yen had cosmetic surgery to give him folded eyelids and to straighten his teeth. The changes are very apparent in subsequent films.

However, Yen gained his breakthrough role in 1992 as General Lan in Once Upon a Time in China II. His final fight against Wong Fei-Hung (Jet Li) remains one of the most celebrated fights in martial arts films to this day. This fight scene could be considered one of the very best in martial arts films, and has been revisited to an extent in 2002′s Hero, where Yen and Li face off again. He learned how to use a spear from a man named Master Ma. Hero was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 2003 Academy Awards but lost to Nowhere in Africa (Germany).

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Golden Harvest (Chinese: ????????) SEHK: 1132 is a film production, distribution, and exhibition company based in Hong Kong. It played a major role in becoming the first Chinese film company to successfully enter the western market with staying power. At the same time, it dominated HK box office sales from the 1970s to 1980s[1].

Notable names in the company include its founders, the veteran film producers Raymond Chow (???) and Leonard Ho Koon Cheung (???). Chow and Ho were executives with Hong Kong’s top studio, Shaw Brothers, but left in 1970 to form their own studio. They succeeded by taking a different approach from the highly centralized Shaws model. Golden Harvest contracted with independent producers and gave talent more generous pay and greater creative freedom. Some filmmakers and actors from Shaws defected. But what really put the company on the map was a 1971 deal with soon-to-be martial arts superstar Bruce Lee, after he had turned down the low-paying, standard contract offered him by the Shaws.

In 1973, Golden Harvest entered into a pioneering co-production with Hollywood for the English-language Lee film Enter the Dragon (????), a worldwide hit made with the Warner Brothers studio.

Golden Harvest supplanted Shaw Brothers as Hong Kong’s dominant studio by the end of the ’70s and retained that position into the ’90s. Its greatest asset for years was that from the 1980s until very recently, it produced almost all of the films of Jackie Chan, Asia’s top box office star. Golden Harvest has also produced a number of films for Jet Li and Donnie Yen.

The Company was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1994. Li Ka-shing and EMI became shareholder of the company in 2004.

Golden Harvest’s activity has declined in recent years. In 2003, they withdrew from film-making to concentrate on film financing, distribution and cinema management in Hong Kong and in Mainland China.

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Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE[1] (born Chan Kong Sang, ???, on 7 April 1954) is an actor, action choreographer, film director, producer, martial artist, comedian, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer from Hong Kong.

Chan is one of the best-known names worldwide in the areas of kung fu and action films. In his films, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons and innovative stunts. Jackie Chan has been acting since the 1970s 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. Besides acting, Chan is 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. In 2008, Chan sang at the 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.[2]

Chan was born in 1954 in Victoria Peak, Hong Kong (then a British Overseas Territory), as Chan Kong Sang (meaning “born in [Hong] Kong”) to Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, refugees from the Chinese Civil War. He was nicknamed Pao Pao (Chinese: ??, literally meaning “Cannonball”) because he was always rolling around as an infant.[3] 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.[4]

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 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.[4][5]

Chan trained rigorously for the next decade, excelling in martial arts and acrobatics.[6] He eventually joined 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.[7]

At the age of 8, 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. Chan appeared with Li again the following year, in The Love Eterne (1963) 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 King Hu film, A Touch of Zen, Chan began his adult career in the film industry, initially signing to Chu Mu’s Great Earth Film Company.[8] At the age of 17, he worked as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon under the stage name Chen Yuen Long.[9] He received his first starring role later that year, in Little Tiger of Canton, which had a limited release in Hong Kong in 1973.[10]

After the commercial failures in his early ventures into films and trouble finding stunt work, Chan joined his parents in Canberra in 1976, where he briefly attended Dickson College and worked as a construction worker.[11] A fellow builder named Jack took Chan under his wing, earning Chan the nickname of “Little Jack” which was later shortened to “Jackie” and the name Jackie Chan stuck with him ever since.[12] In addition, Chan changed his Chinese name to Fong Si Lung, since his father’s original surname was Fong.[12]

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