Jackie Chan is a man that is delightful to watch. He is fast as hell and his fight scenes have some of my favorite martial arts coreography. One of the things that has always shocked and amazed is the fact that he does all his own stunts. News today from cinematical indicates that may not be entirely true:
Stunt man Bruce Law claims on his blog that he has doubled for the martial arts action star in his Chinese-language films. Although some of Chan’s appeal is that he performs stunts himself, it is widely known that for insurance purposes he is required to be replaced by stuntmen in dangerous scenes shot for Hollywood-financed films. But as for his films made back home in Hong Kong, Chan is supposedly doing all his own stunts in those. Chan’s spokesman, Solon So, denies the claim, though, and insists that his client only uses substitutes when working for Hollywood.
Personally, I have no problem with this. Chan has done enough stunts in his life to get the respect of anyone. I would rather see him in more films than wreck himself doing a stunt, (a matter of when not if.) I can certainly appreciate why he would want to keep this a secret – he has attained a title of “stunt master” and may fear to lose it. Who can blame him; I wouldn’t want to go to yellow belt after having black either.
On the other side of the coin I can see why Bruce Law (the stunt double) would “spill the beans.” If he was doing stunts for Chan – you know they were crazy, crazy, unsafe and unwholesome acts of death defiance. People want credit for what they do – especially if it is outstanding work.
Both Chan and Law want the respect that is due to them, and I can’t say I blame either of them for their actions. I just hope this will open doors for Law, because I don’t think he will me getting much work from Jackie anytime soon.
I was curious if you ever thought of changing the page layout
of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.
But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or 2 images.
Maybe you could space it out better?
I forgot to mention one important fact; EVERYONE gets doubled at some point. Even longtime Chan stunt double Mars has himself been doubled in movies. I consider him to be one of the best stuntmen of all time, but he had stand-ins for certain stunts during one of his starring roles in the movie Naughty Boys.
Oh man if I had the time I could capture at least a hundred instances of Jackie being doubled. It’s not just in his recent movies either – he was doubled 30 years ago as well. Heck he was even doubled a few times in his signature movie Police Story. He’s had other people do big stunts for him, (rooftop leap in Rumble, fall from helicopter in First Strike, swing from crane in Mr. Nice Guy etc….), but he’s been doubled far more often for small things – particularly falls on his back or other instances where he might hurt his head, (due to the injury he suffered while filming Armor of God). He’s been doubled a lot in fight scenes as well, (Miracles, Heart of Dragon, Shanghai Noon, Dragons Forever etc…) – especially Thunderbolt where he was unable to do any fighting due to his injury while filming Rumble in the Bronx.
Jackie was doubled even when he was younger in such movies like Project A,Armour Of God and others.It’s not a question he was doubled or not,it’s a quetsion whether you want to believe tales of fans or not.
Check this site if you don’t believe,if you have the dvds you can stop in the right moments,then you’ll see what i mean.
Regards.
this is a joke right? how do you expect a 50 year old guy w/ that many injuries to be doing his own stunts? The above poster mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, ‘does all his own stunts’ was just marketing for Rumble in the Bronx that people have ran with since then… but you’ll notice no one mentions it anymore, its clear the hollywood ones use stunt doubles, why is it any stretch of the imagination to assume that some of the HK ones do too?
this is non-news.
Jackie Chan’s over 50 now, so if he gets one of his stunt team to do something now and again it’s not really a surprise.
jackie chan doing his own stunts is awsome and you can tell when he does them in a movie.
I’m saying this as a massive Jackie Chan fan. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest stars to grace this earth.
Jackie has never done all his own stunts. That would be impossible. He simply cannot do all the stunts for his films and keep the filming going. Doubles are used all the time in HK films. Indeed, Jackie doubles for other people when needed. It’s a collaborative effort. The “does all this own stunts” myth was only made up by New Line to promote RUMBLE IN THE BRONX.
There’s a part of this story that isn’t in Doug’s report; the fact that when asked, the alleged stuntman wouldn’t name any of the movies he was in. I find that very suspect.