From time to time, I'm able to offer a guest essay to my readers. Today's guest author is Kyle Leaman. Those who have been reading this site since the very beginning may remember Mr. Leaman and his work at The Part-Time Critic. He was one of my first regular readers and someone who I linked to from time-to-time as his work was often both insightful and insanely comprehensive. A couple years back (just before he retired from writing) he compiled a list, complete with mini-essays and YouTube excerpts, of the 100 greatest fights in Jackie Chan's action career. It's so exhaustive that you may need a stunt man to get through it all in one sitting. So when I read that Jackie Chan had announced that he was officially retiring from action films, Mr. Leaman was the first person I thought of. I asked him if he had anything to say about it and he thankfully obliged. So here is, unabridged and unedited save for token formatting, Kyle Leaman's "The Punctuation of an Action Career".
The Punctuation Point of an Action Career
by Kyle Leaman
In 1978, a film
by the name Snake in the Eagle's Shadow became
a breakout action hit in Hong Kong and the star of the film, a 24-year-old Jackie
Chan, followed it up with the equally successful Drunken Master. Chan then went on to release a major action film in
every single decade since, an unprecedented and unequaled 30-year run. To put
that into perspective, Jason Statham would need to keep making action films
until the year 2032 just to draw even with Chan's run. Even I don't think I
could stomach that many Cranks and Transporters.
While promoting
his newest film at the Cannes film festival, Jackie declared that Chinese Zodiac would be his last action
film. The following day Jackie clarified the comments on his Facebook page,
saying that the film would be his last "big action movie." What exactly does Chan mean by "big
action movie," and does this mean we should start writing eulogies for his
action career? Is this the end of drunken boxing, super cops, and big stunts?
Will everyday objects like ladders and clothes racks now cease to become props
of mass destruction? If we are to understand what Chan means to do with Chinese Zodiac, the punctuation that he
is trying to put on his career, we really have to understand the story he has
been writing over the last four decades.
