Jackie Chan’s 10 most insane stunts
Fostering an early career as a stuntman and filmmaker in Hong Kong, Jackie Chan has since become an internationally beloved movie star, enjoying collaborations in Western cinema with the likes of Steve Coogan, Owen Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Cleese. Still, despite his success in America, Chan is one of the few film stars who is known far more globally for his early action movies.
Inspired to join the industry as a result of the phenomenal international success of Bruce Lee, Chan had the chance to work with the martial artist and actor during the 1972 film Fist of Fury and 1973’s Enter the Dragon in tiny extra roles. Steadily, Chan grew in popularity and found his first taste of true success with the release of Drunken Master in 1978, a film that would spark one of the star’s most popular franchises.
Success in the late ‘70s meant Chan thrived in the following decades, appearing in a number of classic Hong Kong action movies in which he would perform all his own stunts. Breaking over 40 bones in his body over the course of his career, Chan has long been known as a dedicated performer, putting his body on the line in the name of creating some of the most staggering action movie set pieces ever put to film.
Take a look at our list of Jackie Chan’s ten greatest stunts of all time below and marvel at the actor’s baffling fearlessness.
Jackie Chan’s 10 greatest stunts:
10. Winners and Sinners (Sammo Hung, 1983) – Skating through traffic
Apart from being a great name for a movie, Sammo Hung’s Winners and Sinners starred Jackie Chan among other action stars Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. A goofy action comedy, there are several moments in the movie that allow Chan to shine, none more so than when he weaves through moving traffic on roller skates, leaping over cars and engaging in general hijinks.
Moving from car to car on his humble skates, Chan eventually ends up defying gravity, leaping over the head of a motorcyclist before stealing his bike. It might not be his most impressive stunt, but it’s certainly an enjoyable one.
9. Drunken Master II (Jackie Chan, Lau Kar-leung, 1994) – Crawling over hot coals
The sequel to his early martial arts classic, Drunken Master II, tells the story of a young man who tasks himself with stopping a group of criminals from stealing precious relics. Whilst the film isn’t known to be the very best of Jackie Chan’s, it is worth mentioning for its spectacular final fight sequence alone. During the concluding fight, Chan falls back into a bed of red-hot coals and crawls over them in a desperate bid to survive.
Not keen on the idea of faking the stunt, Chan actually crawled over hot coals for the scene, suffering a number of burns for his troubles whilst creating a truly stunning action set piece.
8. Police Story 4: First Strike (Stanley Tong, 1996) – Snowboard jump
Police Story is by far Jackie Chan’s most successful franchise, having made eight movies from 1985 to 2013, though Police Story 4: First Strike may not be his very best. Early on in the movie, however, Chan pulls off an incredibly impressive stunt when he’s pursuing a number of skiers down a mountain. Chasing them on a snowboard, as Chan approaches a cliff edge, a helicopter rises out of nowhere, with the actor leaping and clutching hold of its landing gear.
The greatest thing about this scene isn’t just the moment he grabs onto the helicopter; it’s everything before and after the incident. Leaping from the vehicle afterwards, Chan lands into the ice-cold water and somehow ends up escaping the feud unharmed.
7. Rumble in the Bronx (Stanley Tong, 1995) – Leaping down the alley
Released in 1995 as a way for Chan to break into Hollywood, Stanley Tong’s Rumble in the Bronx starred the martial arts star alongside Anita Mui, Françoise Yip and Garvin Cross. His American movies didn’t quite allow him the same amount of freedom when it came to his stunt work, so his staggering high-flying flips during Rumble in the Bronx demonstrated some of Chan’s final great stunts.
The iconic alley leap scene sees Chan clear a 28-foot gap between two buildings whilst being in pursuit. If this impressive feat had failed, it could have meant severe injury for the actor.
6. Police Story 3: Supercop (Stanley Tong, 1992) – Hanging from a helicopter
There are a few vehicles Jackie Chan clearly loves, with the actor often using buses and helicopters for some of his most death-defying stunts. In Police Story 3: Supercop, one such moment happens, with the climax of the movie being a genuine hear-in-mouth kind of situation. The scene sees Chan clutching hold of a rope ladder dangling from a helicopter mid-flight, climbing up the rungs as he is battered by the wind.
Giving Michelle Yeoh her breakout role, Police Story 3: Supercop is one of the greatest movies in the series, featuring a number of staggering stunts that hit new heights during the climax.
5. Who Am I? (Jackie Chan, Benny Chan, 1998) – Building slide
Who Am I? is certainly not one of Jackie Chan’s most well-known movies, but fans of the actor will know that the 1998 film features some of his most impressive stunts. Telling the story of a CIA agent who is double-crossed and wakes up in South Africa with amnesia, the film is brilliantly far-fetched and features a number of set pieces which people would complain as being ‘obviously fake’ if they weren’t entirely real.
Fleeing a group of criminals on top of a building in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Chan is forced to slide down a very steep glass facade, falling forwards and backwards several times as he somehow finds time for a sprinkling of comedy whilst performing for his life.
4. Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985) – Mall chase
One of the greatest action movies ever made, Jackie Chan wrote, directed and starred in 1985’s Police Story, a film that includes a number of truly insane stunts. The film follows Chan’s characters’ efforts to protect an informant from a brutal crime boss, seeing the protagonist engage in a mental game of cat and mouse in the process. One such chase scene sees Chan leap onto a pole in the centre of a shopping mall and slide down it, bringing down a number of display lights in the process.
It might not sound so impressive, but take a look at the clip below to understand how truly crazy this stunt is, with the actor crashing through lights and even a pane of glass as he makes his way to the ground floor.
3. Project A (Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, 1983) – Clock fall
For the sake of some variety, we’ve snuck a slice of Project A between the Police Story sandwich, with Chan pulling off a miraculous stunt in the movie. Once again finding himself trying to evade a number of dangerous criminals, the stunt sees Chan at the top of a clock tower before seeing its sharp facade as the only possible way down. Naturally, he starts with dangling from one of the clock hands.
Losing his grip on the clock, Chan plummets to the floor, hitting a number of fabric canopies that break his fall on the way down. The actor narrowly avoided serious injury in this scene, however, landing on his neck and coming very close to permanent damage.
2. Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985) – Bus chase
After that short Project A interlude, we’re back to Police Story, with our pick for the actor’s second-best stunt being his insane bus chase sequence. Chasing the vehicle, Chan grabs onto the back bus with the handle of an umbrella and holds on for his dear life as he tries to find hit footing at 40 mph. Clambering his way onto the second deck of the bus, Chan uses the hook of the umbrella handle to get a grip on the bus’ innards whilst being thrown around on the outside.
Running on top of several cars, he manages to fight the goons before being thrown off. Though, fear not, Chan’s cop bolts it down the hill and intercepts the bus, causing the passengers to comically fly through the front windshield. Brilliant.
1. Armour of God (Jackie Chan, Eric Tsang, 1986) – Hot air balloon skydive
The final shot of Armour of God, and indeed, the final addition to this list, sees Jackie Chan jump from a clifftop onto a moving hot air balloon, landing on its soft fabric before abseiling his way down. As he had no experience of base jumping, the staggering moment was actually achieved after Chan jumped from a plane, but knowing that little behind-the-scenes fact doesn’t make the moment any less impressive.
Without pulling his parachute before impact, Chan lands on the balloon with full force, remarkably avoiding any serious injuries in the process. There is truly no action star in the history of filmmaking quite like him.
