The Influences and Virtuosity of Jackie Chan
As one witnesses the immensity of historical events, styles, and genres that have shaped contemporary cinema, there are patterns and repetitions within certain artists’ styles that have influenced future filmmakers. This reflection on history will attempt to contextualize the impact of previous film styles and genres on subsequent modes of filmic representation. In it there will be an analysis of slapstick comedy and classical Hollywood musicals and how their influence combined in the stylization of Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong Kung Fu films of the 1980s. It is of great importance that filmmakers not only learn from past cinematic conventions, but also build upon these conventions to create a unique style that expresses a brand-new type of cinema. In this way, Jackie Chan’s early films coalesce the styles of previous filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Bruce Lee to establish a unique form of generic cinema that in turn influenced film’s subsequent stylistic achievements.
In understanding the immensity of elements that influence Chan’s work, it becomes necessary to narrow the focus. Therefore, the ideas contained in this article will try to focus on how Chan utilized old Hollywood influences and make comparisons within his early films, which added to his virtuosity as a performer and filmmaker. Jackie Chan’s influences and cosmopolitanism arise from much more than a classical Hollywood background. Dr. Kin Yan Szeto states in her Modern Chinese Literature and Culture article titled: “Jackie Chan’s Cosmopolitical Consciousness and Comic Displacement,”
“Chan’s Cosmopolitical perspective emerged from experiences of displacement in his native Hong Kong and continues to develop and act in an increasingly transnational environment of media production, distribution, and consumption. British colonialism, Chinese nationalism, and Western Orientalism and imperialism — along with their associated patriarchal discourses — shaped Chan’s complex identity and film persona.”
The following article is not meant to minimize the impact that Jackie Chan had on both Hong Kong cinema and Hollywood or to examine all of Chan’s many important influences; instead, its purpose is to explore how Jackie Chan understood the work of classical Hollywood artists and how he created something wholly different that resonated for decades. In a 2001 The Guardian interview, Chan himself relates his own impact on Hollywood following his 1980 directorial debut The Young Master. In response to how filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Sylvester Stallone stole from Chan’s work, he states, “I don’t mind, because when I was younger, I stole from Hollywood films, I stole from Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Gene Kelly.”
By observing how physical objects are used at certain points in film history, one can begin to see a correlation between certain virtuosic performers on-screen. Beginning with the slapstick comedy of the silent era, and then the musicals of the 1950s, there is an observable evolution of how objects are used to enhance the virtuosic performance of the characters on film which culminates in the extremely physical and at times, humorous acting style of Jackie Chan.
The use of slapstick comedy is apparent in many aspects of Chan’s films. In his 1985 film Police Story, Chan utilizes several aspects of gags established by comedians like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. These gags are used in both comedy and action sequences. One can look to the writings of Noël Carrol, noted film philosopher, regarding sight gags in silent slapstick comedies in order to focus on Jackie Chan’s repurposing of these gags in order to create a new form of stylization. In the film Police Story, there exist several instances where Jackie Chan utilizes what Carrol calls the ‘object analog.’ Carroll describes the object analog sight gag as, “one object is equated with another. One object, that is, can be seen under two aspects: one literal and the other metaphorical.”[i] I know that is a mouthful, but basically one object has a purpose that is obvious and one that is not. In the case of Police Story, Chan utilizes this sight gag for its slapstick comedic effect. In the police station Ka Kui (Chan) is tasked with answering phones from multiple desks located throughout the office. This scene offers little in the way of plot development but emphasizes the physical and comedic capabilities of the film’s star. One could even argue that it builds upon the idea that Ka Kui’s character is both physically capable, yet also resourceful. Much like Charlie Chaplin in films such as 1918’s Shoulder Arms, when Chaplin’s character uses Limburger cheese as a grenade, or 1925’s The Gold Rush, where Chaplin’s shoe is equated to a meal complete with laces as spaghetti, Chan utilizes two pencils as chopsticks. Here, Chan is borrowing from Chaplin’s use of the object analog to create a comedic effect that showcases the character’s resourcefulness while at the same time maintaining a source of comic relief in an otherwise violent film. The performance of Chan in this scene does not detract from the overall narrative, but it does give the character of Ka Kui a sense of agency in his capabilities as a police officer. Seemingly absent-minded, Chan marvelously walks the razor’s edge between ineptitude and virtuosity. He has such trouble answering the ringing phones, getting the cords tangled as they crisscross between desks. However, his physical ability to untangle them is a testament to his physical ability as a performer. This physicality with objects is used later in the film to showcase his ability in choreographed fight sequences as opposed to comedic gags.
In the comedic segments of Police Story, Chan borrows from the comedic genius of Charlie Chaplin; however, in the fight sequences in which objects are used, Chan recalls the sheer athleticism of Buster Keaton. One can compile several sequences of Police Story to understand the parallels between Chan’s ability and Keaton’s. However, two sequences in particular will be brought up later in a discussion of 1950s musicals. After Ka Kui tracks down the escaping criminals on a bus during the opening sequence of the film, Ka Kui chases down the bus using an umbrella as a grappling hook. His athleticism allows him to keep up with the moving vehicle. Akin to Buster Keaton’s 1926 film The General where Keaton deftly maneuvers a moving train, Chan has the ability to treat a speeding bus not as a dangerous impediment but as an object of advantage over his opponents. Both Keaton and Chan use the danger of the moving vehicle and their respective athletic virtuosity to gain the upper hand over dire circumstances. While not strictly adhering to slapstick comedy, both performers allow their bodies to perform seemingly superhuman acts. In this way, Chan channels Keaton’s athleticism and bodily movements to achieve a perilous sequence that the audience understands as both dangerous for the character as well as the performer. It is not just Ka Kui performing in a fictional film world, it is Jackie Chan endangering his own life for the sake of his art, much the same as when Keaton tackled the train in The General.
Similarly, Chan’s use of objects derives from a seemingly coherent influence from Keaton. At the end of Police Story, during the final battle between Ka Kui and the bad guys, Chan combines the influence from Chaplin and Keaton to create weapons from ostensibly benign objects. For instance, Chan utilizes a rack of clothing as a weapon, invoking Chaplin’s object analog while displaying the athletic virtuosity common with Keaton. Keaton, known for his robust and physical comedy, also worked with repurposed objects in his films. Noël Carrol explains this as the refunctionalization of objects. “Very often at the height of an action sequence, when disaster seems inevitable, a comic will seize upon an object and use it triumphantly in a way that deviates from its ordinary employment.”[ii] For instance, in Keaton’s 1927 film College, the hero uses a lamp as a javelin and a clothesline pole as a pole vault. While similar to the object analog discussed earlier, the use of these items is made with a perceived lack of thinking, in other words, an object of opportunity. Looking at Chan’s use of the clothing racks in Police Story, you can see a correlation between how Keaton uses objects around him in ways for which they are not designed, while at the same time using them to prevail over their enemies. While Chan tends to use objects within his reach as weapons, this in no way diminishes the influence that Keaton has in Chan’s decision to include them in his fighting style. The sheer physicality of stunts that Chan achieves seems directly apparent when watching Buster Keaton perform. In many ways both performers not only utilize objects around them, but also turn their bodies into objects.
Keaton and Chan both share the ability to throw themselves around space as if their bodies themselves are objects. In films like 1922’s Cops as well as College, Buster Keaton is seen hurling himself through space as if his body were not a corporeal entity but something that serves another purpose; a counterweight on a ladder as in Cops, a rudder of a rowing team in College, or even thrown at others like a missile. All these instances can be seen in the work of Jackie Chan. In films like 1980’s The Young Master as well as Police Story, Chan’s fighting style requires his body to be thrown through the frame to defeat his enemies. Whereas Keaton, for the most part, utilized his body to incite laughter, Chan uses his body to create action. However, both achieve the same type of reaction from the audience: a sense of awe for the marvelousness of the virtuosic. It is that type of virtuosity that recalls another age of film history, an age that disrupts the black and white silence of Chaplin and Keaton for a color and music rich world of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.
The comedic talent and athletic ability of Jackie Chan can be traced back to Chaplin and Keaton, however, in order to properly adhere those techniques a great deal of choreography must be achieved. In this way, Chan harkens back to the musical numbers of the 1950s. Fred Astaire dance numbers as seen in such films as Stanley Donen’s 1951 picture Royal Wedding and Vincente Minnelli’s 1953 musical The Band Wagon require not only extreme technical talent but also a great deal of devising and choreography. Similarly, Chan’s films need the same amount of planning in order to achieve the technical marvel inherent in the fighting sequences. This is strikingly similar to a choreographed dance number from The Band Wagon in which Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse appear to dance organically and with no practice. They move with each other and seem to respond to each other in a very natural way. The audience is aware that this action is choreographed, but it is not overtly apparent. In The Young Master, the camera shows the full bodies of both fighters, similar to the dance number in The Band Wagon, allowing the fight to unfold in real time. Here, Chan is using more of a dancing style and seems to dovetail it with a form of Kung Fu.
In Police Story, utilizing the techniques of the previously discussed slapstick comedians, as well as the choreography similar to that of 1950s dance films, Chan creates a more realistic and organic style of fighting. His use of several cameras, quicker cutting, and closer framing allow the audience a more natural experience. While the athleticism of Chan works well to elude to a more real encounter, the choreography is nearly as important. One wrong move or one missed mark could create a serious injury to himself or a costar. Creating a rhythm is just as important in the dance numbers of Fred Astaire as it is with the fight sequences of Jackie Chan.[iii] This rhythm allows for the graceful dancing of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse but also for the brutal violence as displayed in the final sequence of Police Story. The techniques afforded to Chan in the areas of cinematography allow the rhythm of not just the performers but of the camera as well, a dance of violence between actors, camera, and audience all made possible by lessons learned from early cinema history. However, choreography is not the only element that Jackie Chan and Fred Astaire happen to share.
As discussed earlier, Chan’s use of objects in the environment around him was borrowed from Chaplin and Keaton, but Fred Astaire also has a history of using inanimate objects in his dance sequences. In Royal Wedding, Astaire famously dances with a hat rack and gym equipment in lieu of his missing partner. In The Band Wagon he uses arcade games and shoeshine equipment as props to showcase his immense talent. Whereas Chan uses objects as weapons, Astaire repurposes objects as a replacement for a missing dance partner. In these cases, Astaire communicates to the audience that he does not require a human partner in order to create an organic, realistic dance sequence. Once again, the display of virtuosity is paramount. Often this display of virtuosity supersedes the narrative of film, pausing the story in order to showcase the talent of the performer. In Police Story, the telephone sequence is a scene that exists only to display the talent of Jackie Chan, akin to the hat rack dance of Royal Wedding or the arcade dance in The Band Wagon. Where Chan shares this type of element with Fred Astaire and to a certain extent Charlie Chaplin, the use of the food machine in 1936’s Modern Times as an example, he also shares his athleticism with another dancer of the era.
There are parallels that exist in the style of the past performers discussed. Chaplin and Astaire share the grace and talent that reveal the technical virtuosity of their craft. Keaton shares his athleticism with that of Gene Kelly. While no less a dancer than Astaire, Kelly was just as adept in his ability as any dancer before him. However, much like Keaton who had to respond to Chaplin in order to find his audience, so too did Kelly. Kelly’s performance in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain displays a great deal of insane athleticism. His dance sequences require acrobatic ability along with technical choreography, as well as action sequences that parallel that of Keaton and later of Chan. In the film, Kelly’s character Don Lockwood is chased by a throng of fans. In order to escape, he jumps from an automobile to a trolley, then jumps into a moving car, deftly bounding around through space. Here, it is easy to imagine Keaton on the General and later Chan jumping on a moving bus in Police Story.
Similar to Keaton, Kelly’s physical build was very compact and muscular. This allowed Kelly to dance with speed and style, as well as allowing him to treat his body like an object, much like Keaton. While dancing, Gene Kelly would often contort his body into different shapes. These shapes would be vastly different than the smooth graceful lines of Fred Astaire. In doing this Gene Kelly would turn his body into forms that look inhuman. Using sharp angles of his legs and arms, Kelly would often contort himself to look like an object, like Buster Keaton forming a ball or javelin as he hurls himself through the air. While Jackie Chan does share some traits with the grace of Fred Astaire, his sheer physicality is more on par with that of Gene Kelly. During his fight sequences, Chan will contort himself and use his compact frame to move about the space as if his whole body is a weapon. The same way that Gene Kelly’s body becomes the full expressive unit, so too does Chan’s, but in fighting instead of dancing.
Keaton’s athleticism followed Chaplin’s slapstick. Gene Kelly’s athletic acrobat-like dancing distinguished itself from Fred Astaire’s grace and technique. Jackie Chan seems to recognize the benefits from each performer and decides which aspects from each in which to use. The object analog slapstick of Chaplin, the body-as-object of Keaton, the choreography of intimate objects of Astaire, and the athleticism of Gene Kelly all work to define Jackie Chan’s representation. However, where each of the previous performers had an apparent counterpart, so too does Chan.
When comparing the acrobatics of Keaton and the comedic lightheartedness of Chaplin or the grace of Astaire and the physicality of Gene Kelly, one invariably draws another comparison to Chan’s on-screen persona, a comparison to that of Bruce Lee. Where Chaplin and Astaire utilized technical grace and a deft manner, Keaton and Kelly would use stunts and their athleticism in order to create the marvelous. The subsequent performer had to find a way to step out of the shadow of the previous artist. Likewise, Jackie Chan had to form a unique fighting style in order to differentiate himself from Bruce Lee. In his book Planet Hong Kong, David Bordwell distinguishes between the fighting styles of these two performers, “Lee’s lesson that the action should be filled with emotion, partly by creating long routines displaying varied techniques and presenting a smoothly accented rhythm. Chan’s combat scenes showcased his instant reflexes and rubber contortions.”[iv] While Lee tended to display perfected technique in his craft, Chan would use his stunts, athleticism and the refunctionalization of objects to break away from the confines of Lee’s persona.
Instead of sticking to a set norm presented by Lee, Chan appears to have borrowed techniques from previous performers in order to create a new craft out of prior forms of film entertainment. Chan’s style uses the environment around him as a means for the direction of his fight choreography. Chan’s actions are dictated by which objects are around him in the environment. In the final fight sequence of Police Story, Jackie Chan is fighting the bad guys in a populated mall. Around him are sporting goods, clothing racks, display cases, and escalators. Here, it is easy to imagine Chaplin in the department store in Modern Times, or Gene Kelly dancing on chairs and couches in Singin’ in the Rain. But it is important to note that a martial arts performer, filming thousands of miles away, has embraced the conventions of several different periods in film history in to order create a wholly new form of cinematic entertainment.
Besides the object-based conventions that Chan shares with Chaplin, Keaton, Astaire, and Kelly, he also shares some other aspects with these performers that made them stand out to global audiences. Chaplin and Keaton consistently played the underdog, the little guy, the nobody. Chan uses this idea in his films to great effect. Usually he must prove himself or stand on the right side of the fight. Often outnumbered, Chan must take on multiple opponents to be victorious. Here, images from Keaton’s Cops are aroused, where Keaton takes on a whole squad of police officers. This runs at odds to Bruce Lee who, in films such as 1978’s Game of Death, would often fight one enemy at a time, each with increasing difficulty.
Chan, being outnumbered by his opponents, is forced to use whatever is around him as a weapon, including his own body. Chan draws inspiration from many figures of film history. It is important to understand that film history is not a straight line, it is circular. Filmmakers learn from others. Jackie Chan’s films are violent, brutal, and melodramatic, but also contain comedy bits, athleticism, acrobatics, and dangerous stunts. If one thing can be said that Chan shares with the performers discussed here, it is virtuosity. The ability of these performers to execute their craft flawlessly is of utmost importance. The narrative and formal work of the camera take a back seat to the sheer talent that unfolds onscreen. Whether using props as objects or bodies as objects these performers showcase their abilities better than most. While being influenced by his predecessors, Jackie Chan stands alone and a magnificent virtuosic performer. His film creations may be a hybrid of other techniques and influences both Eastern and Western, but his brilliance is extraordinary.
WORKS CITED:
[i] Noël Carrol, “Notes on the Sight Gag,” in Comedy Cinema/Theory, ed. Andrew S. Horton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 36.
[ii] Noël Carrol, “Notes on the Sight Gag,” in Comedy Cinema/Theory, ed. Andrew S. Horton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 36.
[iii] Clyde Gentry, Jackie Chan: Inside the Dragon (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield), 128.
[iv] David Bordwell, “Two Dragons: Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan,” in Planet Hong Kong (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2000), 56.
Kin-Yan Szeto, “Jackie Chan’s Cosmopolitical Consciousness and Comic Displacement,” Jackie Chan’s Cosmopolitical Consciousness and Comic Displacement 20, no. 2 (2008): p. 230)
Kathy Sweeney, “Interview: Jackie Chan,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, September 14, 2001), https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/sep/14/artsfeatures1)
