Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong-born Chinese actor, filmmaker, martial artist, and stuntman noted for his slapstick acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, and clever stunts he usually does himself. Chan has been acting since the 1960s and has been in over 150 films. But did you know he was also an opera singer?
Jackie Chan is a trained opera singer who has released more than 20 albums and over 100 songs in five languages. He used to sing the theme songs to his movies over the closing credits in the 1980s and earned Japan’s Best Foreign Singer Award in 1984.
Who is Jackie Chan?
Fang Shilong known professionally as Jackie Chan was born in Hong Kong on April 7, 1954. He grew up in a modest home and his parents had a steady job in the French embassy in Hong Kong. By the time he reached 7, his father, Charles Chan, took a job as the head cook at the American embassy in Australia. Chan was left in Hong Kong and enrolled in the China Drama Academy. During his time in school, he learned several skills including martial arts, singing, and acting. He spent 10 years in the school and rarely saw his parents.
Today, we know Chan as a multi-talented artist with global popularity in both the east and west. Chan is one of the most well-known and influential cinema characters globally. (Source: Jackie Chan)
Is Jackie Chan A Trained Opera Singer?
We all remember Jackie Chan as the fearless kung fu fighter who will launch himself from a balcony, electrocute himself on some lights, and then crash into a pane of glass. But what if I told you that the classic action star had a softer side that doesn’t involve kneeing henchmen in the face?
As it turns out, Chan is also a huge pop star who is also well-known in his home country of China as a classically trained singer. He was sent to the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera school run by Master Yu Jim-yuen when he was younger. Chan learned his acrobatic kung fu style and how to act and sing at this school.
Since then, he has published 20 albums in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese, and English, with songs in Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Taiwanese, and English. In Japan, he even received the Best Foreign Singer Award in 1984.
He’s also known for singing the ending themes to his films, notably one for Young Master called Kung Fu Fighting Man.
He’s also published some tracks that you might be familiar with. Chan not only provided Shang’s voice in the Chinese version of Mulan, but he also performed I’ll Make a Man Out of You, a classic Disney song. (Source: World Kings)
Were Jackie Chan’s Parents Spies?
Jackie Chan’s name is so closely associated with “danger” that you’d believe he was born into it. Well, you wouldn’t be wrong if you said he was.
Charles and Lee-Lee Chan, the actor’s parents, were born in Hong Kong on April 7, 1954. Jackie Chan grew up knowing his father was an actor, even casting him in some of his directorial projects.
Still, he was shocked to learn that Charles whose real name is Fang Daolang was a secret spy for the Chinese Nationalist Revolutionary Army. He met Jackie’s mother when he arrested her for smuggling opium into China. Jackie didn’t learn these deep family secrets until he was well into adulthood when his mother died in 2001. (Source: Cinema Blend)