Jackie Chan's Family Values

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Cultural icon, Jackie Chan (成龍), is well known all over the world for his countless action movies. However, Jackie has reached this level of success at the expense of his family. Jackie has a reputation of being an absent father and husband, but remains unapologetic over his self-confessed chauvinistic views.

Does Not Celebrate Wife’s Birthday

Even when he is wrong, he will never apologize to his wife. “I am a chauvinist. I never remember my wife’s birthday. Once the annual birthday celebration tradition is started, she will expect you to celebrate it every year. If you never celebrate with her, she will be upset once or twice at most, but she will later get used to it.”

One time, Jackie broke his habit and organized a large birthday celebration for Joan. She was very happy, but Jackie asked her, “Do you want me to treat you nicely only on your birthday or do you prefer that I treat you well everyday of your life?” Of course, Joan chose the latter one.

Father and Son Relations

Jackie recalled how one year his son Jaycee Chan (房祖名) called him to wish him a Happy Father’s Day, but he scolded Jaycee instead. Jackie told him, “I am not into celebrating any holidays as we should be nice to each other and treasure our family everyday.” Jackie told his son to call him more often and not only on Father’s Day. Afterwards, Jaycee, who used to call him at least twice a year ended up not even calling him once a year.

After Jackie’s father die, Jackie never visited his father’s grave to pay respects. He also told Jaycee not to even bother to visit him in the cemetery, as long as his son is good to him while he is still alive. Jackie said there is no reason to offer (burn) any fake money to the dead. The person is gone and he or she is not going to be there to accept anything. Jackie believes that the most important value is to be filial to your parents while they are still alive.

No Money for Illegitimate Daughter

Contrary to his belief in treating his family well everyday, Jackie had an affair with actress, Elaine Ng (吳綺莉), which resulted in the birth of his illegitimate daughter, Etta, in 1999. Jackie explained that the reason for not leaving any money for Etta is that his will was written 15 years ago, before Etta’s birth. His will has not been changed since, thus it is not unusual for Etta to be left out of his will.

End of Dangerous Stunts

Avoiding further discussion about his illegitimate daughter, Jackie enthusiastically spoke about his upcoming movie, CZ12 <十二生肖> instead which he directed and starred in. This will be the last movie where he personally performs all of the dangerous stunts.

“I decided to film such an action-packed movie to leave a good ending to my career as an action hero, allowing me to become a legend,” Jackie revealed.

In an attempt to leave a lasting and memorable impression of his movie, Jackie appears in many difficult stunts in CZ12. He will roll down hills, escape from German shepherds, run on the top to a moving container truck, parachutes into a live volcano, and much more.

To surprise the audience, Jackie’s wife, Joan, also makes a cameo appearance at the end of the movie. It was not easy for Jackie to convince Joan to do so since she had retired from acting for thirty years. Jackie begged her many times and guaranteed that only her back profile is required, which will only last less than one second.

With her unwillingness to even show up in the studio, Jackie lied to Joan by convincing her to simply show up for casting, and after a few shots, her parts were already filmed.

Jackie seemed to like making his own rules.



Creds: Sina