Built a global career on a willingness to break his own bones, then broke something harder to fix with his politics.
At a glance
- Known for
- Comedic kung fu films, doing his own stunts, the Rush Hour franchise
- Before fame
- Trained at the China Drama Academy from age 7 to 17 with 19-hour sessions
- Off-screen
- Has a plastic plug in his skull from a near-fatal fall on the set of Armour of God
Timeline
Refugee kid turned Hong Kong legend who chose Beijing over the city that made him.
Still in the ring
Karate Kid: Legends (2025) grossed $117 million worldwide with mixed reviews. He doesn't need Hollywood to stay solvent: in 2019, he ranked No. 4 on Forbes' highest-paid actors list at $58 million, almost entirely off Chinese films and Asian endorsements. The stunts are smaller now, but the checks aren't.
The Beijing pivot
At the 2009 Boao Forum, he said Chinese people need to be 'controlled' or they'll 'just do what they want.' It landed badly. He backed Beijing's national security law for Hong Kong in 2020 and expressed desire to join the Chinese Communist Party in 2021. The same man who publicly supported pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Hong Kong's Democratic Party vice-chairman put it plainly: 'There is a lot of hatred for him in Hong Kong now.' That's not a minor reputation problem. It's a fracture between who he was and what he became, and unlike a broken ankle, there's no cast he can paint over it.
The private life goes public
The affair with 1990 Miss Asia winner Elaine Ng Yi-Lei came out in 1999 when she became pregnant with his daughter Etta. His son Jaycee got six months in a Beijing prison in 2014 for marijuana possession and sheltering drug users, while Jackie was serving as China's anti-drug goodwill ambassador. Etta was briefly homeless in Canada in 2018 and told the press her father was 'not in my life.'
The memoir Never Grow Up (2018) filled in the rest: drunk-driving Porsches and Mercedes into walls on the same day, throwing a toddler Jaycee across a room, visits to prostitutes. 'I wasn't a good husband or father,' he wrote, which was at least accurate.
Hollywood finally gets it right
Two failed Hollywood attempts in the 1980s didn't stick. Rumble in the Bronx (1995) did, partly because he finished filming it with a broken ankle in a cast painted to look like a sneaker. That kind of commitment reads on screen.
The Rush Hour franchise with Chris Tucker grossed $845 million across three films. For Rush Hour 3 alone, he took home at least $53.7 million when salary and backend were combined. Quentin Tarantino had already called him 'one of the best filmmakers the world has ever known' at the 1995 MTV Movie Awards, but it's the box office that turned that compliment into leverage.
The last action hero of Hong Kong
After Hong Kong's industry spent years trying to market him as the next Bruce Lee, Drunken Master (1978) showed what he actually was: Buster Keaton with a black belt. The comedy wasn't a concession to wider audiences, it was the whole point. The Young Master (1980) beat Bruce Lee's box office records in the territory.
Police Story (1985) has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes; its signature stunt sent him sliding down a pole strung with live electrical lights, resulting in burns, shocks, and a broken vertebra that nearly caused partial paralysis. He considers it his best film. Armour of God (1986) nearly killed him outright: a fall from a tree onto rocks fractured his skull, caused a brain hemorrhage, and left a permanent plastic plug in his skull and partial hearing loss. He was back on set within months. That willingness to absorb damage was the whole product.
Ten years in a school that hit back
Born in 1954 to parents who were refugees from the Chinese Civil War, he entered the China Drama Academy at age seven and didn't leave for a decade. Sessions ran up to 19 hours. Errors earned corporal punishment. He trained alongside Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, the three of them later known as the Three Dragons.
He left at 17, moved to Canberra to join his parents, worked construction, and got the nickname 'Jackie' from a co-worker named Jack. Then he came back to Hong Kong and spent a few years as a stuntman on Bruce Lee's films, including Enter the Dragon (1973). The industry that would eventually make him a star spent most of this period getting him punched for other people's close-ups.
Rise to Fame
A construction worker in Canberra got homesick and flew back to Hong Kong to do the only thing he'd trained for since age seven: get hit. After a decade at the China Drama Academy and a stint as a stuntman on Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, the industry tried to make him the next Bruce Lee. It didn't work.
Drunken Master (1978) worked. He grafted Buster Keaton's slapstick timing onto kung fu choreography, playing the fights for laughs. The Young Master beat Bruce Lee's box office records. Hollywood tried twice in the '80s and failed both times. It took Rumble in the Bronx in 1995: he broke his ankle mid-shoot and finished with a cast painted to look like a sneaker. America was sold.
In the Spotlight
The Rush Hour franchise grossed $845 million, but his biggest films aren't what define his current reputation. He pulled $58 million in 2019 without a Hollywood blockbuster, mostly off Chinese films and Asian endorsement deals.
That market is where the controversy lives. He backed Beijing's national security law for Hong Kong in 2020 and expressed desire to join the Chinese Communist Party. This from someone who supported Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989. The Hong Kong Democratic Party's vice-chairman said there's "a lot of hatred for him" in the city now. He's still doing his own stunts, but his legacy splits along political lines nobody expected from a guy who used to fight with ladders.
Side Notes
Never Grow Up (2018) reads like a confession: drunk-driving Porsches and Mercedes into walls on the same day, a toddler thrown across the room, visits to prostitutes. "I wasn't a good husband or father," he wrote.
His son Jaycee got six months in a Beijing prison in 2014 for sheltering drug users and marijuana possession, while Jackie was serving as China's anti-drug goodwill ambassador. His estranged daughter Etta, born from an affair with 1990 Miss Asia winner Elaine Ng, was briefly homeless in Canada in 2018. He walks around with a plastic plug in his skull from a fall that nearly killed him on the set of Armour of God. The body kept the receipts even when the public image didn't.