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Sunday
Apr262009

Jackie Chan Celebrates 100th Film

DateSunday, April 26, 2009 at 12:36AM
Congratulations to Jackie Chan, who just signed on for his 100th motion picture. The Hollywood Reporter says Chan will star in and co-direct Chinese Zodiac, which - believe it or not - is an action movie.

Actually, the plot of Chan's centennial movie sounds a lot like National Treasure, as he scours the globe in search of artifacts linked to major events in Chinese history. Chinese Zodiac will film in France, Vienna, Hong Kong, Beijing and Kazakhstan, and it's expected to go into production this fall. This summer, Chan will shoot the remake of The Karate Kid, which is now called The Kung Fu Kid.

I've been a fan of Jackie's since the mid-80s, when I first saw The Big Brawl on the USA Network. This was even before the network had several hours a week dedicated to martial arts via its terrific Kung Fu Theatre on Sunday afternoons. We really were spoiled then.

But Chan's films weren't popular imports in the U.S. until Rumble in the Bronx in the mid-1990s, by which point he was already on the downhill slide of his magnificent acting and directing career. That resurgence did lead to the Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon movies, which finally gave Chan a major American audience.

Chan is still only 55, so you have to wonder how many more characters named Jackie there really are left for him to play, but even a bad Chan movie is usually worth watching for five or ten minutes, just to see what kind of fight choreography he can come up with.

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