Jackie: A survivor in more ways than one

"A nice guy!"

That's how Jackie Chan briefly describes himself and that's what I tell friends -- and strangers alike -- who have been curiously asking me how the action superstar is like in person. A nice guy. Absolutely!

When I first interviewed him in New York in Sept., 1998 (for Rush Hour, his first successful Hollywood starrer), I was impressed by the man's simple ways. He wore simple clothes (not-so-expensive-looking long-sleeved shirt hanging over not-so-expensive-looking denim pants; he revealed later that he owned just one formal suit and washed his own underwear), his manners were gentle, he's down-to-earth (no star complex at all) and didn't move around with a coterie of factotums (alalays), very accessible, never frowning nor pouting even after a whole-day of press sessions. A nice guy.

Last week in Hong Kong for the premiere (of his new Hollywood starrer, Shanghai Noon, a spoof on Western flicks), Jackie was as nice as ever. I was pleasantly surprised when he recognized me as "the guy from the Philippines," whereupon I handed to him a copy of the STAR which carried my interview with him in New York (The Americanization of Jackie Chan, on Conversations) and he even agreed to be photographed reading it (photo above).

And he's very physical. He gestures a lot during interviews, letting his hands sometimes -- oftentimes! -- do the talking (his English is tolerably good, thank you!). If you won't stop him, Jackie would even spring to his feet to demonstrate how a stunt was shot and, if you ask him to, I bet he would tumble and stand on his head to drive home a point. Very physical.

No wonder he inevitably gets hurt -- and how! -- during shootings. In reaction to last Sunday's Conversation with Jackie, readers have been asking not so much about his movies (his fans know them like the lines on their palms) but specifics about his multiple injuries, topped by a bad fall in Yugoslavia which left a hole in his head.

I did mention in the previous article Jackie's injuries (just like the over-publicized 20 kinds of vitamins and minerals that Eddie Garcia takes everyday for the past two decades), but I guess it won't hurt to enumerate them again (for the benefit of Jackie fans who want them for their record).

Here's a whole chapter from Jackie's autobiography I Am Jackie Chan (My Life in Action) devoted to those injuries, entitled "It Only Hurts When I'm Laughing": My Aches and Pains:

Anyone who's a fan of my movies knows that if you watch my films to the very end, you'll get a sort of ghoulish treat: a selection of my "no-goods," outtakes from stunts and fight sequences that just don't work out right. (Yes, bloopers! -- RFL) A lot of times the result is an injury, and sometimes a bad one. My very worst injury ever, the one that almost killed me, actually occurred on a very routine stunt. I was shooting Armour of God (1986) in Yugoslavia, and I was still recovering from the jet lag of flying 24 hours to get there. The stunt was simple -- just jumping down from a castle wall to a tree below. The first time I tried it, the stunt went perfectly, but I wasn't satisfied with the take. I tried it again, and the second time, I somehow missed the branch I was trying to grab. Whish! I fell past the tree and onto the ground below. Actually, there was a cameraman down there trying to capture a low angle, and if he hadn't scrambled out of the way, I would have probably landed on him. We would both have been hurt, but not badly. Instead, I hit the rocky ground head first. A piece of my skull cracked and shot up into my brain, and blood poured from my ears. The production team quickly got on the phones to try to find the nearest hospital that could do emergency brain surgery, and eight hours later, I was going under the knife. The operation was successful, and I recovered quickly -- even though there's a permanent hole in my head now, with plastic plug there to keep my brains in.

Here are some of my other serious injuries (though none of them were as serious as that one):

HEAD: Other than the brain hemorrhage I suffered on Armour of God, I've hit my head and injured it many times. I was actually knocked completely unconscious while working as a stuntman on Hand of Death.

EARS: The Armour of God fall also left me hard-of-hearing in one ear.

EYE: On Drunken Master, my brow ridge was injured, and I nearly lost an eye.

NOSE: You'd think that Someone Up There had it in for me and my nose! It's bad enough that it's so big to begin with, but I've actually broken it at least three times -- on The Young Master, Project A and, most recently, Mr. Nice Guy.

CHEEK: While making Supercop, I dislocated a cheekbone. I didn't even know you could do that.

TEETH: Hwang Jang Lee is a tremendous kicker ... as I found out when he kicked out one of my teeth (accidentally) while we were making Snake in Eagle's Shadow.

CHIN: I injured my chin on Dragon Lord. It was painful even talking for a while. Which made it hard to direct, not to mention act.

THROAT: During The Young Master, I was almost suffocated when I injured my throat.

NECK: I've hurt my neck a lot, but my worst neck injuries happened during the clock-tower fall in Project A, and after I messed up a flip during Mr. Nice Guy.

SHOULDER: I dislocated my shoulder while making City Hunter.

HAND: During The Protector, I hurt my hand and finger bones -- adding injury to insult.

ARM: While I was shooting a fight scene in Snake in Eagle's Shadow, my arm was accidentally slashed by a sword that should have had a blunted edge. Blood went everywhere, and I fell down screaming ... and the camera kept rolling! That's real pain you see in the movie!

CHEST: On Armour of God II, I dislocated my sternum after falling from a hanging chain. That's another bone I didn't know you could dislocate, but somehow I managed to do it.

BACK: I've had a lot of back injuries doing my movies, but the pole-slide scene in Police Story almost paralyzed me when I nearly broke the seventh and eighth vertebrae in my spine.

PELVIS: Also during the pole-slide stunt, I dislocated my pelvis. I guess you're wondering just how many weird bones a person can dislocate. Sometimes, it seems like I've dislocated them all.

LEGS: I crushed my legs while shooting Crime Story, after getting caught between two cars.

KNEE: I've hurt my knees so often that I wonder whether there's even any cartilage left in them. (If you think I run a little funny, that's part of the reason why.) It makes any stunt in which I have to jump harder, but I do my best anyway. Would you expect anything less? One of my worst injuries occurred during City Hunter, while I was shooting a skateboard chase.

FOOT: I broke my ankle while jumping onto a hovercraft in Rumble in the Bronx. After the bone was set and a cast was put on, I was told to stay off my feet until it healed. But I had a movie to finish! I went back to the set and put a sock on my broken foot, painted to look like a sneaker.

See! He's Superman. A survivor in more ways than one. A walking specimen of his own derring-do.