The 6 Most Needlessly Dangerous Jackie Chan Stunts

6

Electric Pole Slide from Police Story

Don't be confused by Police Story's complicated title -- this is actually a safety video about the dangers of teaching too many people kung fu. After watching all these bodies fly through fish tanks and windshields, you'll realize that Hong Kong stuntmen have a shorter life span than the breakable objects behind Jackie Chan's enemies. Police Story is the reason I think there are 380 words for broken glass in Cantonese. Racism is the reason I think there are 381 for boiled chicken feet.

5

Hot Coal Crab Walk from Drunken Master II

Like most Jackie Chan films, Drunken Master II is a schizophrenic mix of childish overacting and manly violence coming together to make a perfect movie. He sets out to protect Chinese artifacts from falling into the hands of foreign museums by using a style of kung fu that only works if you get the right amount of drunk. To be specific, that right amount of drunk is: fucking. It's by the director of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and a writer whose previous credits include the unread Post-it note "Don't forget to take your lithium."

The final fight takes place in a steel factory where Jackie faces off against Ken Lo, the man who kicks the crap out of him for about a third of each Jackie Chan movie. In this one, Jackie turns the tables on him by getting hammered on ethanol. In American movies, heroes overcome adversity through love or spirit. In China, it's perfectly reasonable for the protagonist to kill his problems with industrial grain alcohol. That's good news, USA -- it means that when the Chinese finally do invade us, that's only going to make this great nation more American.

The epic steel factory fight is filled with deadly stunts. Jackie is attacked by glowing red-hot steel poles. Giant metal barrels are dropped centimeters from his dong, which may be confusing since that means "Smith" in China. And then Jackie gets kicked onto a holy-shit-real pit of hot coals. He tries to scurry across it before his extremely flammable pants figure out that they're sitting on molten steel and he doesn't make it. By the time he gets to the other side of the 9-foot fire pit, he's more steam bun than man and can barely roll free. Luckily, safety rails are for capitalists, so he only had to make a 10-inch jump to get to non-flaming land.

4

Clock Tower Triple Fall from Project A

Project A was written and directed by Jackie himself, and like him, it's a series of impossible feats and impossible circumstances. The biggest stunt of the film is an homage to a 1923 Harold Lloyd sequence, where Harold ran from a pursuer and ended up dangling from the hands of a clock tower. It was a whimsical and iconic moment in silent film history. Jackie modernized it slightly by putting a bullet in his pursuer's head and then letting go of the clock to fall three stories on his face. If Jackie Chan had directed Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, it would have crashed into a crate of chickens and caused the evil rodeo clown's dirt bike to peel out on his crotch.

3

21-Story Skyscraper Slide from Who Am I?

This is another film written and directed by Jackie himself. Maybe you can blame the following two sentences on the chunks of his brain that fell out during his Project A skull injury, but here goes: In Who Am I? Jackie Chan plays a character named both "Jackie Chan" and "Who Am I?" He loses his memory after special forces attack a meteor, and he joins an African tribe and a rally car race before stopping an international space weapon smuggling operation staffed entirely by kickboxers. So crumple up that screenplay you're working on, awesome 8-year-olds. Jackie Chan already made it.

Although "story" seems like such an inadequate word for it, the story of Who Am I? culminates with Jackie in a fistfight at the top of a Rotterdam skyscraper. He drops an important disk off the roof and knows his only chance at getting it back is sliding 21 stories down the side of the building. When Jackie Chan, the actor, saw the leap that his character, Jackie Chan, was supposed to make, he had two words to say. The first one was "SHIT." Obviously. The second one was "YES," but it took him two weeks to say it. That's how long the world's most derangedly brave man took to work up the nerve to do this stunt.

Why Was It Unnecessary?

This was an unassisted free fall down a skyscraper. In 1997, there were any number of safety harnesses or camera tricks that could have been used to create the effect of a man sliding off a building. Well, safety harnesses and camera tricks are how cowards applicate their tampons. That being said, would it really have been cheating if someone had put a crash pad or two in the place Jackie was very, very likely to tumble off to his doom? And speaking of tumbling, he spent the entire fall doing unneeded somersaults and twists. He even stood up and scampered on his feet for a bit. Maybe he thought a semi-controlled slide down a skyscraper was too dull? Maybe he saw the Grim Reaper on the way down and had to dodge him? I honestly don't know, but it must take a team of groundskeepers three days to shave the entire surface area of Jackie Chan's balls.

2

Rolling Over a Circular Saw from Mr. Nice Guy

In Mr. Nice Guy, Jackie Chan plays a martial artist named Jackie, because at this point in his career, he figures you're not paying attention to the parts between the fights and the stunts. Plus with all the drugs, kicking, and sassy female reporting in Mr. Nice Guy, a main character named Jackie helps remind viewers that it's not a Jean-Claude Van Damme film.

Are you positive? I sure feel like I'm in a Jean-Claude Van Damme film.

The grand finale of the movie involves Jackie driving over a drug dealer's house in a 120-ton dump truck, but the most memorable stunt takes place on a 24-inch table saw.

Jackie is fighting a construction site full of men and finds himself being fed crotch-first into a real, whirring circular saw -- and that's not even the unnecessary part. That comes moments later with this:

This.

1

Hot Pepper Fistfight from Project A Part II

By far the most needlessly painful stunt in Jackie's career happened during Project A Part II. He was losing a fistfight, so he evened the odds by chewing up hot peppers and spitting the juice onto his knuckles. You probably already know what I'm about to say, but the goddamn hot peppers were real. Jackie Chan is so unnecessarily Method that he pays his father's palm a dowry before asking his own hand to masturbate.

Why Was It Unnecessary?

Judging by this, it looks like it might be easier for an actor to pretend he's been hit in the eye with hot peppers when he hasn't actually been hit in the eye with hot peppers.

Seanbaby owns 62 Jackie Chan movies and already knows all the Jackie Chan trivia you're typing at him in the comments section. Visit him at Gamegoon.com or follow him on Twitter.

For more of his articles on martial arts masters, see 7 Superpowers That Steven Seagal Actually Believes He Has or 5 Self-Defense Books for Women (Who Want to Lose a Fight).