I’ve been a very big fan of Jackie Chan since my younger years.  From the humble beginnings of dubbed films made in foreign countries with tremendously loud sound effects for every punch, kick and step to some of his more recent works.  He deserves so much credit for what he has accomplished and the joy he has brought through his comedy style, use of props in fights, and his whole personality.  If you have never watched a Jackie Chan movie at this point, you need to stop reading this right now and go find one at your favorite online streaming service or if you live in Alaska, you have a couple days before the last Blockbuster closes.

I’m waiting.  Go on.

Ok.  Hope you enjoyed it.  And I hope you picked one of his better movies.  For a guy who has made like 200 movies, of course some of them are a little rough around the edges, some are rough in the middle too.  Some of them are so good I managed to tear the film in the VHS tape.  Before it happened to me, I didn’t know that was possible.

After reading his autobiography years ago, I developed a deeper love for the man.  He put in years of hard, even tortuous work with an opera school where the demands were extreme physically, emotionally, and every other -ally.  He then turned stunt man, briefly becoming the go-to guy for Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon.  As amazing as that would be, the stunts were no joke and he got banged up constantly, especially as he started becoming the lead in the bulk of the movies of his career.  I would estimate the guy has broken more bones than Mr. Glass in Unbreakable.  I will keep the M. Night Shyamalan references to a minimum, I promise you.

He got himself punched more times than Rocky Balboa, hit by more objects than Luke Skywalker in Empire Strikes Back, and carted off to the hospital more times than Evil Knievel.  All just to make us have a better movie experience.  He was like a one man movie version of the TV show Jackass before it became a movie.  Minus all the gross and disgusting ploys.  At least I can’t recall Jackie shooting bottle rockets out of his butt hole on camera.  Let me know if you come across such a video.  I am not sure I would watch it, but I would like to know if it’s out there in the world.

If you watch him in interviews his personality and charm really stand out.  And even for his age he spends his days working on new movies and training.  You can’t help yourself.  You have to love this guy.  You will love him.  You will.

Sorry for getting a little creepy there.  But you will…love him.

If Jackie Chan was my grandpa:

We would perform choreographed fight scenes with interspersed slapstick comedy in every public place we could find.
I would tell him my favorite parts of each of his films while he tried to be gracious without telling me to “shut up already”.
I would ask him to recreate the Police Story mall jump stunt in the local mall near me.
I would ask him to teach me everything he knows about martial arts and train me like I was his own character from Drunken Master, Shaolin Wooden Men, or any of the other 3000 movies where he had to learn a new fighting style to defeat the bad guy(s).
We would go golfing with Sammo Hung and Jet Li.

There is so much more, but I have to remind myself that he doesn’t know I am his grandson.

I could go on, but it hurts me too much because he is not my grandpa.