Searching for Jackie Chan

Martial Media, Culture and Other Arts Martial Media and Popular Culture
1

There are some odd pics at the link below.

Searching for Jackie Chan
2009-06-02 09:50:50 CCTV.com Web Editor: Xie Tingting

“Searching for Jackie Chan” is a new movie depicting adolescent dreams realistic or not. The movie held a screening for veteran artists earlier last week.

The hero of the 100-minute movie is Zhang Yishan, a 17-year-old TV star. Zhang became nationally famous for his role in the popular TV drama “Kids”.

The movie tells about a Chinese boy, Zhang, living in Indonesia with his parents. He is fond of kung-fu and attends a local training school. But he is often mocked there for his poor Chinese. Zhang then decides to go to Beijing in hopes of studying with his idol Jackie Chan. He suffers his share of difficulties before finally getting to meet Jackie Chan who tells him the importance of learning Chinese before kung-fu.

Jackie Chan himself makes a brief appearance in the movie. More than forty popular TV actors have got involved in the project, which is rare for a teen flick.

The movie is slated for release in China on July 3.

2

still searching…

According to the previous post, this film opens tomorrow.

‘Searching for Jackie Chan’
Jun 02, 2009
By Fred Dintenfass, www.eChinacities.com

Jackie Chan has been in one hundred movies, but in the new movie bearing his name Chan only makes a cameo appearance. The star of ‘Searching for Jackie Chan’ is Zhang Yishan, a 17 year old TV actor making his debut in a feature film.

Zhang is a Chinese teenager living with his family in Indonesia. Zhang loves kungfu and trains at a local school but suffers the jeers of his classmate because his Chinese isn’t very good. Zhang decides to head to Beijing to meet the mighty Jackie, and hopefully study with him. The journey is a long and arduous one and Zhang goes through quite a bit before he finally meets the man himself. In what I can only assume must have been a bit of a letdown for young Zhang, Chan tells Zhang that learning Chinese must come before kung fu.

This seems like a slightly dubious premise; Chan himself has always seemed to put his movie gongfu ahead of language learning, and his recent statements about the dangers of freedom for Chinese people, caused an uproar online, and in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

‘Shaolin Temple’, Jet Li’s first movie, caused so many children to run away to Shaolin that a special train had to be built to ship them all back. The producers of ‘Searching for Jackie Chan’ seem to be hoping their movie will have children swarming their Chinese classrooms, and of course, movie theaters as well.

3

Jackie Chan has been saying for years that education/book learning is more important than kung fu. Jackie mentioned back in the early(?) '80s that when some young kid asks him if he would teach him KF, Jackie tells him to forget about kung fu and concentrate on getting an education.

That’s generally the common attitude anyway. It’s understandable. But what Jackie doesn’t take into account is that not everybody was born on an assembly line. Plus, nowadays, I seriously doubt that vast numbers of Chinese kids are still running away from home to study KF. I like Jackie, but he always gave me the impression he doesn’t really care much for KF or MA in general, even though his onscreen modifications of it are the major thing that got him where he is today.

4

Quest for Jackie Chan

Jackie turned 56 last week. I hope when I’m 56, I’ll have such a cute Aussie girl as Maria Tran blogging about me. I can dream, right?

Quest for Jackie Chan fans
12 Apr 10 @ 08:21am by Lauren McMah

WHAT do you get when you combine one legendary kung fu actor, a legion of dedicated fans and the limitless social networking potential of the internet?

You get Quest for Jackie! - a multi-platform, multimedia reality project that seeks to showcase and celebrate Australian fans of the iconic martial artist and movie star Jackie Chan.

The project is the brainchild of Fairfield resident Maria Tran.

“Jackie Chan has got to be one of the most recognisable faces in the world,” Ms Tran said.

“He’s inspiring, has made over 100 films, broken 200 bones and is still making movies.”

Ms Tran’s project embraces new media technologies, including Twitter and Facebook, as well as online video formats such as YouTube and Vlogging.

The 25-year old, who grew up watching Jackie Chan films and hopes to one day meet her idol, said she was inspired by The Chaser comedy troupe and Natalie Tran, the western Sydney woman who was recently dubbed the “queen of YouTube”.

Australian Chan fans are already flocking to the Quest for Jackie! website, where they have been discussing their love for Jackie Chan films and posting messages for the legendary actor.

“One of my goals for 2010 is to travel across Australia to meet and interact with Jackie Chan fans, record personal messages and collect mail for the legendary icon,” Ms Tran said.

Ms Tran, who recently produced Australia’s first suburban kung fu feature film Maximum Choppage: Round 2, said she noticed a growing interest in Jackie Chan-inspired projects during the past five years, particularly in Fairfield.

She attributes the Hong Kong-born actor’s popularity with Australian audiences to his roots in Australia - not only did Chan live in Canberra during the 1970s, but, in an unlikely pairing, is reportedly buddies with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

“I’m quite sure that the country of Australia, despite being so isolated from the rest of the world, has people with stories to tell about this kung fu larrikin.”

Go to http://www.questforjackie.com

5

[QUOTE=Jimbo;945781]Jackie Chan has been saying for years that education/book learning is more important than kung fu. Jackie mentioned back in the early(?) '80s that when some young kid asks him if he would teach him KF, Jackie tells him to forget about kung fu and concentrate on getting an education.

That’s generally the common attitude anyway. It’s understandable. But what Jackie doesn’t take into account is that not everybody was born on an assembly line. Plus, nowadays, I seriously doubt that vast numbers of Chinese kids are still running away from home to study KF. I like Jackie, but he always gave me the impression he doesn’t really care much for KF or MA in general, even though his onscreen modifications of it are the major thing that got him where he is today.[/QUOTE]

Jacking is telling the truth vis a vis world wide societal changes in all cultures!
No different form any kid in Brazil who believes he will be the next Pele or US kids looking at baseball or basketball as the sole employer.

Getting an education is the better key and far more valuable. If one happens to be a great soccer player or great basketball player then that is good.
Education is the key!

6

yes. I saw the dvd.

it is a good move for teen to watch.

real life and things on the big screen–

if the boy passed his chinese, JC will e main the pic of him and the boy.

–

teen always seek validation from their idol in real life and on the big screen.

–

grandma worried about generation gap, JC helped to build the bridge

–

always learn our root or family tree

–

starting from your self.

:cool:

7

Greatest marketing ever for this flick

Finally, finally, finally - The Kung Fu Kid!

Take that Karate Kid!

Jackie Chan & The Kung Fu Kid DVD
Friday 6th August 2010 - 09:54:07

A 15-year-old Chinese boy spends his days dreaming of what it would be like to meet his idol, martial arts superstar, Jackie Chan.

Unable to concentrate in school he heads to his grandparents in the city and devotes himself to tracking down the Kung Fu legend.

On his epic journey of discovery, our want-to-be karate kid learns the fighting skills he desires, but also valuable lessons in life from the different people and strange places he finds himself in.

The biggest test awaits however, when he is kidnapped by a torn apart family that has suffered a tragic loss.

Can the dreamer become a Kung Fu hero himself? And can Jackie Chan rescue him from his nightmares?

Starring Yishan Zhang and featuring Jackie Chan, who will also be starring in the highly anticipated The Karate Kid this summer Jackie Chan & The Kung Fu Kid is the story of a real life karate kid!

8

Retitled again: Kung Fu Champion

The original title is perfect. Marketers are so stupid sometimes.

Film review: Kung Fu Champion
Emma Williams, August 03, 2011

Director: Gangliang Fang and Ping Jiang
Cast: Jackie Chan, Yishan Zhang, Hua Tian and Yihong Jiang

Normally when a movie poster features someone, you assume that they will have a prominent role in the film. However, the promotional shots for Kung Fu Champion have proved that theory wrong by luring audiences into thinking that Chan is the lead actor when in fact he appears for just five minutes at the start and five minutes at the end of this very irritating film.

Kung Fu Champion tells the story of Zhang (Zhang), a teenager who was living in Indonesia with his grandmother, until he finds out that his idol Jackie Chan (Chan) is filming in Beijing. Zhang decides to travel there and meet Chan while pretending the move is so he can see his other grandparents. When he arrives in China, Zhang ends up at the wrong place because he hasn’t paid attention in his language classes, meaning his Chinese is poor.

In the temple that Zhang ends up at, he meets a girl who it turns out works in movies with an actor who knows Chan. So he asks her to find out where Chan is filming. However, the girl forgets and Zhang decides to leave and search for Chan himself. This ends up being easier than it sounds, as shortly after arriving at the train station to travel to Beijing, Zhang has his wallet stolen and while trying to find it, ends up being kidnapped by the thieves. By this time both grandparents realise the boy is missing and call the police who go looking for him.

Kung Fu Champion comes across as being more suitable as a children’s film, but I think the bizarre plot would manage to even irritate them. The actors are all dubbed with different voices, including Chan himself at one point. The action scenes somehow lack any real adrenalin rush for the audience and the cheesy emotional scenes had me reaching for a bucket. At first I wasn’t going to give Kung Fu Champion any stars, but parts were funny… even though they weren’t meant to be, so I decided to be nice and rate this one star.

9

Jackie Chan Kung Fu Master

This is a really odd film. It’s Jackie at his most self-promotional, portraying himself exactly how he would like to be perceived, a benevolent movie star martial arts master, who, like Jimbo said above, constantly reiterates the importance of staying in school. There are some fight scenes - fantasy wire-work fights - but they don’t have that Jackie magic, despite the fact that he appears in many of them (or at least, his stuntman does). The kid, Zhang Yishan, is really annoying. His dream to become Jackie’s disciple is so preposterous that I just kept wanting to punch him in the nose - despite understanding that dream, I felt no sympathy for his character whatsoever. It’s like a Jackie Chan film in that Jackie is in it and plays a major role, but in tone, it’s not at all like a Jackie film. Jackie totally phones it in, even more so than with Tuxedo or Medallion. It’s like a Disney made-for-TV film, infusing fantastic elements like the Kung Fu temple and some really insipid attempts to tug heartstrings, but then it’s got this abusive drunk evil gang leader that seems hyperreal.

I would have enjoyed a documentary on Maria Tran more.

10

Almost Love

This came up on Netflix in the Martial Arts section. I’m posting the review here because it doesn’t really deserve its own thread.

Almost Love is a Korean rom-com about a wannabe actress and a wannabe Jackie Chan. The wannabe Jackie Chan theme is a lot like Searching for Jackie Chan conceptually, which is kind of odd, but kind of a testament to Jackie. It’s a classic rom-com - cutesy, goofy, awkward, misunderstood - although for some weird reason, there’s an unusual amount of crotch humor (awkward erections, groin kicks, awkward walking-in-on scene with the two males nekkid soaping each other in a public restroom). Maybe that’s a K-flick thing. There are some mediocre fights and stunts. And the ‘boy loses girl’ part was surprisingly tragic, a shocking tone change for the film.

No sword fights. Not worth watching really, but then, neither was Searching for Jackie Chan. :frowning: