The Oscar-winning classic Jackie Chan hates for a very specific reason: “I think it’s a bad movie”
Even if you’ve somehow never seen one of his movies, you know who Jackie Chan is, who, from his early days in Hong Kong and his American conquests to his position as a Hollywood megastar later on, has firmly entrenched himself in pop culture all over the world.
The legendary action hero’s films have grossed billions and helped change the very face of modern cinema, and he’s also a very talented singer to boot.
One complaint you could level against Chan’s output is that it isn’t particularly deep, such that his stunts are impressive and the slapstick is funny, but there’s not much else to hang on to, with his movies being extremely visual, offering very little plot or commentary getting in the way of the action.
If you like your films to have a bit of substance, then you’ve probably never given Chan a second look, but Chan doesn’t give a single, solitary damn about this impression of his career. As explained to The New York Times magazine, the martial arts icon has a very unique view of what makes a movie great, and it has nothing to do with the script.
“You don’t have to understand the dialogue to understand it,” he said, explaining, “So all over Asia, people go to see them… For my philosophy, the more people look at a movie, it’s a good movie. Like Schindler’s List, I think it’s a bad movie. I think Jurassic Park is a good movie. When you make a movie, you get an Oscar, OK. Very difficult. But when you make one movie around the world, everyone wants to see it, it’s more difficult than to get an Oscar.”
We can speculate that this is perhaps Chan being salty that he’s never won or even been nominated for a competitive Oscar, or perhaps he’s annoyed that Schindler’s List star Liam Neeson once turned down one of his movies, or maybe he’s just sick of being told that his films don’t matter. Chan would have faced serious discrimination when he moved to America, particularly as a non-native English speaker, and now that he’s one of the biggest stars on the planet, maybe he’s just enjoying a spot of revenge.
However, Chan is very clever in comparing those two films in particular, as not only were they both directed by Steven Spielberg and released in the same year, but Spielberg only agreed to make Jurassic Park, in which Chan was supposed to have a role, on the condition that he could work on Schindler’s List at the same time.
They not only sum up why Spielberg is one of the all-time greats, but also why cinema as a medium is so fascinating, where one is an intense, character-driven historical drama in which action sequences are used sparingly to heighten emotion, and the other is a practical effects-laden wonderland with a simple plot and lots of big set pieces, and yet, both are rightfully considered masterpieces.
Not to sound like a centrist dad about this whole thing, but there’s room for all kinds of movies in the bustling world of cinema. Chan makes an excellent point in that not every ‘great’ movie needs to be all about dialogue, but even then, calling Schindler’s List bad is a touch of insane behaviour.
