VIBE Magazine
March 1996

The movie is subtitled, but dialogue is beside the point. Chan, now
41 years old, makes Bruce Lee look like your grandmother. His popularity in
Asia surpassed Lee's long ago, and though he isn't widely known in America,
certain stars would be well-advised to watch their backs: Compared with
Chan's explosive gymnastics, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal look
like old drunks on NyQuil. And unlike the macho muscleheads who dominate
Hollywood action flicks, Chan isn't above taking a few lumps or playing the
clown. "I am never a superhero in my films," says the star of the new movie
Rumble in the Bronx. "Rather, I'm the underdog who only makes good through
training and hard work."

A master of fight choreography, Chan is hilarious, graceful, and violent all
at once. He's not a fighter per se, but a graduate of the China Drama
Academy, where he trained from the age of seven, becoming an expert at
martial arts, acrobatics, and the use of traditional Chinese weapons. "We
really had long hours," he recounts (via fax from Australia, the location
for his next film). "Five in the morning until midnight was the usual
routine." Every minute of that training is visible onscreen, where he
performs all his own stunts with a physical wit that recalls Buster Keaton
and a hyperbolic kung fu sensibility.

Without the protection of wires, mats, or trampolines, Chan once jumped 50
feet from a clock tower, ripped through two cloth awnings, and landed on the
ground (a feat captured in the film Project A). He's leaped off a mountain
and landed on a hot air balloon (Armour of God). He's performed backward
somersaults down ladders (Project A II). And in his most shocking stunt, he
slid down a string of exploding Christmas lights to crash through a glass
ceiling (Police Story). He was nearly electrocuted-but that's show biz, Hong
Kong style.

Chan pays a heavy price for these onscreen feats: His nose has been broken
three times, and a 40-foot drop in 1986 left him with a hole in his skull.
During the filming of Rumble in the Bronx, he broke his ankle while leaping
from a bridge onto a speeding hovercraft. He missed only a single day of
shooting, then kept on working for the next 20 days in a cast.

Jackie Chan is the most famous movie star in the world-except in America
(which is why you often have to go to Chinatown to see his best work). But
there are signs that this may be changing: A cult following continues to
grow, recent art-house revival festivals have consistently sold out, and the
B-boy ensemble GhettOriginal give Chan a big shout-out in their current
off-Broadway hit, Jam on the Groove. Although the Asian market he dominates
is comparable to Hollywood's, Chan still has been unable to take America by
force. Between 1980 and 1985, Chan appeared in four forgettable American
films, including The Big Brawl with Jose Ferrer, The Protector with Danny
Aiello, and both versions of Cannonball Run. Enter Rumble, another chapter
in his unsuccessful romance with America and a terrible introduction to the
art of Jackie Chan.

In Rumble, Chan plays a Hong Kong cop who visits America and stays to tend
his uncle's grocery store in the Bronx. Although there's plenty of
impressive kung fu and stunt work, the acting in Rumble is more or less on
par with that of your average porn flick. The stylish presentation of Hong
Kong gangsters-a world Chan knows all too well in real life-is missing, and
no American audience will find the faux Bronx sets credible. "We did
consider actually shooting in the Bronx, but because of budget
considerations, we finally settled for Canada," explains Chan.

While blame can't be laid at the actor's feet, the lack of authenticity
hurts. If you're not already a fan, better to skip Rumble and rent videos of
any of the above-mentioned Hong Kong classics. In fact, watching these
gasp-athons at home is much more rewarding-it's difficult to take in all the
action without rewinding just to make sure you really saw what you thought
you saw.

Chan continues to work at a breakneck pace, acting in and often directing
several films a year. He lays his life on the line in the name of his art,
raising the stakes of stunt work along the way. Do Jackie Chan movies
glorify violence? Sure. But unlike Bob Dole's beloved True Lies, they also
show the breadth of their star's character: human, fallible, comedic, and
vulnerable. "A lot of young people, especially in Asia, look up to me as an
example," he says. "So I feel I owe that message to them."