What Was Jackie Chan's First Movie ((install)) -

At the time, Jackie Chan was not a star. He was barely a person. He was eight years old.

Watching the footage today (what little remains of it), you do not see the playful genius of Drunken Master . You see a child performing with the rigid precision of the opera. There is no improvisation, no "Jackie Chan style." There is only a frightened, talented boy doing exactly what his master told him to do. It is a heartbreaking debut not because of what it is, but because of what it represents: the commodification of a child’s labor in the service of entertainment. what was jackie chan's first movie

In Big and Little Wong Tin Bar , the young Yuen Lo was cast alongside his "brother" from the opera school, Yuen Lau—who would later become the superstar Sammo Hung. The film was a typical wuxia pian (martial arts melodrama) of the era: low budget, black and white, and heavy on stage combat. At the time, Jackie Chan was not a star

In a way, his first movie represents the chains he had to break. The rigid, traditional martial arts of his debut had to be discarded for the chaotic, innovative cinema he would eventually invent. Watching the footage today (what little remains of