Jackie Chan’s deep background in martial arts allowed the actor to craft a unique fighting style. With his comedic approach and martial arts expertise, Chan is without question one of the most respected stars in the kung fu movie genre. In a career that has spanned over 40 years, Chan has starred in dozens of action vehicles, with most of them being films that emphasize his skills as a martial artist.
While the genre is crowded with talented martial arts actors like Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal, two in particular – Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan – stand out as the biggest of them all. Initially marketed as an actor in the same mold as Lee, Chan eventually went in a different direction and succeeded in developing his own brand of kung fu. Now, Chan has a reputation for a specific style of fighting that combines Chinese martial arts, acrobatics, wild stunts, and the ability to use anything around him as a weapon.
Jackie Chan’s martial arts experience is rooted in his youth when he was a student at the Peking Opera School. During his time at the Hong Kong acting academy, Chan endured grueling exercises and went through rigorous training that often took up more than half a day. Aside from acting, Chan was taught acrobatics, multiple forms of kung fu, and how to use weapons. Because Chan was so proficient in many of these categories, he was made a member of the Seven Little Fortunes, a group of youths who used their acrobatic, martial arts, and acting talents to perform shows in Hong Kong. After graduating from the school, Chan furthered his martial arts knowledge by becoming a student of a hapkido grandmaster.
What Martial Arts Styles Does Jackie Chan Practice?
When it comes to martial arts, Chan boasts an impressive range of skills. Lee is credited as an expert in Southern Shaolin kung fu, Northern Shaolin kung fu, Wing Chun (the style of kung fu Bruce Lee learned as a teenager), and hapkido, a Korean form of martial arts. He’s also trained extensively in karate and Western boxing. As Chan himself has noted in the past, his style is “chop suey: everything” [via Quora]. In other words, Chan’s fighting style can’t be defined by any single martial arts discipline. Through his years of training, Chan has managed to put together his own personal style by borrowing elements of all the different types of fighting he’s learned over the years.
Chan’s aptitude with the aforementioned fighting styles proves just how integral his years of practicing at the Peking Opera School were to his development as a fighter. The value of the training Jackie Chan received at the academy can’t be overestimated, as evidenced by the fact that some of his classmates are now martial arts legends in their own right. Other members of the Seven Little Fortunes, such as Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and Yuen Wah, emerged as renowned kung fu actors after their time at the Peking Opera School.