The sentiment from people from his home country is mixed, esp. regarding his behavior. E.g. https://www.quora.com/Do-the-Chinese-like-Jackie-Chan
I'm still a fan though, but only for his movies.
The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
201–210 of 254 posts
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." I'd generalize it to: "Great craftspeople have to kind of like the part of their craft that is unpleasant to 99% of the population." Someone who excels at playing violin, writing computer software, public speaking, etc., generally does not find the "unpleasant" part to be "tiring", "boring", or "work". Instead, it's just part of the overall experience, which is a n…
Yeah, I'm a little skeptical of CS schools that try to shelter their students from suffering. While schools should obviously not attempt to break students, there should be a reasonable crescendo of difficulty within the program. Because, well, software development can be hard . Students that don't like the hard parts don't like software development. This doesn't mean insanely hard "weed-out" classes, but simply proje…
Any program not challenging your ability as an undergrad to implement something beyond your current skill is doing their students a disservice.
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#203The author doesn't want to treat Chan's insistence on his account being an inspirational one and just wants to see it as sad. I'm reminded of a Quora answer by a guy who loved fighting, one phrase he used stuck out at me. "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." You can't push your body to its very limits without getting injured. Planning and preparing for it is not sad, it's smart. Chan's account should be…
Chan mentions the great Sammo Hung who was also in the troupe and credits him with getting him out and started in films. The two of them hired many of their fellow students over the years.
Sammo starred as the master in a film about the school
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rush Hour 1 through 3 have long been some of my favourite movies! If we're getting into Jackie Chan movies, though, one cannot leave out Drunken Master
A note of clarification: Drunken Master is pretty good! Drunken Master II (re-released in slightly edited form as "Legend of the Drunken Master" in the US) is the one that's typically regarded as a bona-fide classic masterpiece.
Just a note, "Legend of the Drunken Master" is more heavily edited than you may be aware. Here's a video illustrating some of the problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A1vMKS6jFg
I wouldn't recommend watching it. It's really missing a lot of the charm of the original.
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow! Eye-opening. Thanks for posting it.
That photo essay is from 2017 and addresses the ridiculously high real estate prices of Hong Kong. Colonialism isn't to blame for that. Globalism is. Colonial Hong Kong certainly wasn't all rosy. There was certainly vast inequity, but that had to do with global trends of poverty and essentially being almost a second-world economy at the time. Growing up in colonial Hong Kong was alright. Definitely not a "colonial he…
Maybe not Hong Kong as a whole, but the Kowloon Walled City might fit the bill. Make's Rio's favelas look positively open and airy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
It was the most densely populated place in the world prior to being demolished and dubbed the "City of Darkness".
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
The lack of respect Chan gets in the west is a travesty IMO. His fight choreography is rooted in the traditions Chinese opera while being constantly fresh, playful and imaginative. He shows absolute technical mastery, but there is always a sense of child-like joy underpinning that mastery. The fact that his films are often regarded as frivolous and lightweight says something profound about what is valued in our cultu…
Doesn't he do a lot of frivolous and light-hearted movies though -- I'm a huge fan. Take a movie like "Who am I", it's like Johnny English meets Drunken Master. "Kung Fu" films to me always have a notion of slapstick, even the beautiful ones like House of Flying Daggers; Chan's background in Opera I imagine helps to fulfill that element of slightly ludicrous spectacle (at least if Chinese opera has any similarity to…
You mentioning Shanghai Noon as an example is bad, the ones you referenced that weren't filmed in hollywood are much better examples - Chan has already expressed his distaste in how hollywood films are produced because most of the time they're in it for money rather than any sort of art.
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
I liked Rush Hour, but according to IMDB he's been quoted as saying those are some of his least favorite movies.
Ah that’s disappointing. I hope he knows the first movie was a highlight of my movie-going childhood!
You need to start referencing his movies that weren't made in hollywood, he has expressively mentioned why they aren't good at all. Yes he broke into the industry but he saw that they care more about money than making an film of art which leeches into the quality of the film itself.
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah that’s disappointing. I hope he knows the first movie was a highlight of my movie-going childhood!
In terms of martial arts action those movies are pale shadows of his earlier Hong Kong work. Partially because Chan is older in those movies and is a little less physically capable. But IMO mostly because of Hollywood's unfortunate style of directing fights and martial arts battles. Traditional Hong Kong martial arts movies use a lot of wide and long, unbroken shots. You can really see the performers performing these…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75XwOm2JWw
Perhaps one of the most best(worst) examples of hollywoods "type" of fight scene - yes this is from netflix but more in reference to any semi-large scale film production in the west.
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm a little skeptical of CS schools that try to shelter their students from suffering. While schools should obviously not attempt to break students, there should be a reasonable crescendo of difficulty within the program. Because, well, software development can be hard . Students that don't like the hard parts don't like software development. This doesn't mean insanely hard "weed-out" classes, but simply proje…
At some point I was introduced to "Find The Hard Work You're Willing To Do" - http://www.cs.uni.edu/%7Ewallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018... I think this is an important bit that a lot of people getting into programming don't realize. Many enjoy the "playing with computers" aspect. Some even enjoy writing new code. But the real test is do you enjoy fixing broken code? The article ends with: > Maybe this is what peop…
I didn't realize anyone likes fixing broken code, debugging, or - from reading HN - what seems like what most professional programmers spend most of their time doing, inheriting a huge broken mess of old software and having to come to understand it and clean it up somewhat. I don't remember reading/hearing anyone say they actually like it.
edit: Nice to hear it!
Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The lack of respect Chan gets in the west is a travesty IMO. I don't think he gets lack of respect. Directors have studied his stuff for years. Anyone who has watched his movies has been impressed for years. However, let's face it, the average person didn't have any inkling who he was until Rush Hour. As for Jackie Chan's work, the problem is that you get injured . No stuntmen in their right mind would do the kind…
He broke his back in the first (or second depending on how you count) Operation Condor movie.
My bad, he cracked his skull.