I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action [School & Library Binding]

This was over the telephone, so I can't be sure, but I swear I heard her smile.

After finishing EST, I'd vowed not to work on another book project until I'd caught up on several months of sleep, but of course, my curiosity got the better of my wariness. I told her I'd go to the meeting, but I couldn't guarantee I'd get involved with the project. "I'm still trying to catch up with things I'd put off during the last book, like having a social life, eating regular meals..."

"The project is Jackie Chan's autobiography."

"Where do I sign?"

What else could I or any fan of Jackie's movies do? I'd loved his inimitable blend of slapstick and daredevilry since I was a kid. And here Ling was talking about the chance to not only work with Jackie, but to get inside his head...a fascinating, if dangerous, place to be.

The trinity of individuals responsible for getting I AM JACKIE CHAN going--Ballantine publisher Judith Curr, executive editor Peter Borland, and, of course, Jackie--apparently agreed that I was up to the task.

A month later, I was on a China Airlines jet somewhere over the pacific, wondering just what I'd gotten myself into. Jackie had asked me to come to Hong Kong to spend the weeks surrounding the Reunification Ceremony with him--so that we could get to know each other, and so we could talk about the structure of the book.

Reunification Week was an odd and uniquely Hong Kong blend of Christmas and New Year's Eve; signs everywhere proclaimed vast discounts on "Reunification Gifts," hawked souvenirs (like "Hong Kong Air in a Can--the Last Gasp of Colonialism"), and invited would-be revelers to a vast assortment of raves, upscale 'dos, and other shindigs in between. Jackie was, of course, at the center of everything--at the top of A-list guest lists, on every television and radio show, mobbed by journalists and gawking foreigners wherever he went. He was, after all, Hong Kong's most popular, and profitable, export, and its most prominent icon.

After two weeks of being run ragged in Jackie's wake, an idea for the book's structure began to emerge. Jackie wasn't just a film star or a stuntman; he was a symbol--a phenomenon. He was born at the beginning of modern Hong Kong, and he grew up as Hong Kong transformed itself from a poverty-stricken shelter for refugees into one of the world's great economic and cultural centers. His birth name was even Chan Kong-Sang--"Born in Hong Kong" Chan.

When Jackie and I finally got the chance to spend some time alone talking (very late at night--Jackie seems to have an endless supply of energy), I told him about my idea: Jackie Chan wasn't just an actor, wasn't just an internationally renowned action hero...Jackie Chan was *Hong Kong.* And the thrilling story of his life was also the story of how Hong Kong itself had pulled itself up by the heels to become a society with global clout and cultural influence.

He liked it. He loved it, in fact. Because there are just two things that Jackie loves more than anything else: His movies, which are his babies, and Hong Kong, his home and motherland.

So the process of writing Jackie's life began. I told him that his fans wanted more than the stuff they could read in movie magazines; they wanted the honest, emotional truth of his life story, the pain he suffered and the mistakes he made, as well as the tale of his eventual triumph. And yes, they'd want to know about his personal life. Jackie was reluctant. "What does my personal life have to do with my movies?"

I told him that if they wanted to know more about his movies, they would go to a theater or video store. This book was about his *life*--and all of the things he'd never talked about before. His merciless childhood training in the Opera School, which involved daily beatings and abusive discipline. His love and hate for his master, Yu Jim-yuen. His adolescence (and first love!)--and his young adulthood in the dangerous fast-lane of Hong Kong's emerging movie scene. His early struggles with the ruthless gangsters who dominate the entertainment industry, and how he overcame them. And yes, readers would want to know about his romances, and his family--his wife and son.

Jackie was very quiet for a while, thinking about memories he'd forgotten (or tried to forget) over more than four decades of existence. And then he said: "Well, let's get started."

Over the next six months, I spent nearly as much time on the road as at home. My staffmembers at A. Magazine covered for me, and I did as well as I could, managing by fax and long-distance telephone. My girlfriend and I split up, the relationship a casualty of my inaccessibility, as I went on trips to Hong Kong, to Rotterdam, to Taiwan, to California, all in the pursuit of Jackie Chan's life.

And the story Jackie was telling made it all worthwhile. Funny, mind-boggling, desperate, heartbreaking, and filled with anecdotes that match his movies for sheer outrageousness, Jackie's life story is like none that I'd ever heard or read. And certainly like none I'd ever written.

And the book, which spends a great deal of time on his childhood, his early years, and his breakthrough into stardom, might just be Volume One: Jackie has many chapters left in his life, and there's so much still to tell...

And maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll be around to tell it.

Fans will love the book because it's Jackie, undiluted, as he's never been seen or heard before. I may have dressed up the words, but the story on these pages is unmistakably his. Those who aren't yet Jackie's fans (and how many of you are there still?) will enjoy this book because it's a unique and wrenching tale of a rise from abject poverty into global prominence--both Jackie's rise, and Hong Kong's. And I may be biased, because I love and respect the man, and I helped him write the book...but I think it's pretty damn good! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.