When Jackie Chan was a boy, his parents enrolled him in the The China Drama Academy in Hong Kong to learn the martial arts, singing, speaking, and acrobatic skills needed for a career as a Chinese Opera performer. He was admitted to the school at the age of seven. His parents dropped him off and signed a ten year contract with the school’s master, Yu Jim Yuen. According to Jackie’s memoir, “I Am Jackie Chan,” the contract terms were very severe. For ten years, the master would provide room, board and training. In exchange, he had the right to administer corporal punishment, even to the point of death, and keep any earnings Jackie made as a performer to subsidize the school’s operations.
This was the same contract all students’ parents or guardians signed. Jackie’s parents sent him away to the school because they could not afford to provide for him, but also because Jackie was such a restless child that a traditional education was not suited to him. I think that nowadays Jackie would have been diagnosed with ADHD, and treated very differently. But in the time and place he lived, training him to be a performer was a way to take advantage of his natural gifts. Chinese Opera had a rich and glorious history, and to be an opera star was a potentially exciting career. Jackie himself reports that he loved the props, the makeup, the applause, the pageantry, and the physical challenge of performing in the opera.
Life at the China Drama Academy with a VERY Sober Master
“The most difficult instruction we had was in the aerial maneuvers that gave Chinese Opera its splendor: flips and somersaults, all learned and practiced without a net or harness…we practiced splits against the walls, against the floor, against everything. As soon as the exercises began, the room would be full of howling, because frankly, it hurt like hell. The worst thing was that, if you couldn’t split all the way, Master would send Biggest Brother over to push your body down until it felt like your joints were coming apart. And if he couldn’t do it alone, he would call other students over and they would hold your legs apart while he pushed you.”
from “I am jackie chan” by Jackie Chan with Jeff Yang
Because all the boys and girls in the school were “adopted” students of the master, Yu Jim Yuen, they took on his name, and underwent a brutal training regimen. This photo of the master was actually taken years after Jackie left the school, when he played a role in a kung fu movie, “The Old Master.”
All students slept on the floor in one room, received meals that were surprisingly meager for growing children, and trained 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
There were rules and restrictions for every hour of the day, and every facet of their lives. Special training masters were brought in to teach martial arts, singing, makeup, and basic education (reading, writing, and simple math). One of the saddest episodes in Jackie’s story is when he receives a farewell note from and upper class girlfriend he adores, and realizes that he doesn’t have enough education to completely understand what she has written. Because education was hyper-focused on stage training, these students had to scramble later in life to educate themselves.
No one was spared corporal punishment, and older students were in charge of “disciplining and teaching” the younger students. Just like the scenes in “Drunken Master, ” senior students led instruction, beat younger student with sticks, and meted out physical tasks that were pretty sadistic. In fact, the scene in “Drunken Master, ” where Chan is required to balance a hot tea pot while holding a standing lunge pose comes straight from Jackie’s childhood recollection.
The Big Break – Performances at the Lai Yuen Amusement Park
When the Master decided that the students’ skills were advanced enough, they began to perform operas at the Lai Yuen Amusement Park in Kowloon. Students would do all the backstage and support work – and a small group, the Seven Little Fortunes, were selected to perform starring roles. Jackie was chosen, and as he describes it,
” … a select few- the best and most skilled of us – would be placed in positions of special honor. They would be the school’s stars, performing each opera’s heartbreakingly difficult stage roles…In the small world in which we traveled, we Fortunes were stars. Not only were we the academy’s elite, acknowledged by all to be the best and brightest, but we also bore the responsibility of keeping the school alive, because it was our performances that generated the academy’s only revenue.”
Jackie Chan from “I am Jackie Chan”
Seven Fortunes Become Part of the Hong Kong Film Industry
One thing Yuen Lung had said was clearly true: the audiences for Chinese opera were dwindling, and though Master said nothing, the school was clearly suffering. Increasingly, Master lent us out as film extras and – as martial arts films became more popular – as stuntmen because, powered by the resources of the Shaw Brothers movie empire, kung fu cinema was turning into an international phenomenon.”
from ” i am jacke chan”
Many of the pupils from the academy went on to have careers in the film industry – moving from stunt actors and extras to roles as actors, choreographers, and fight directors. While the students were fiercely competitive, and not always kind to one another while they studies together, once they left the school, they looked out for one another, and helped one another find work. In this way, they exemplified the Confucian bond of brotherhood that we have studied in class. Here is a partial list of some of Jackie’s brothers and sisters, and how we have benefitted from their contributions to movies we have seen in class:
Yuen Qiu is an alumna of the China Drama Academy. According to IMDB, she has more than 44 acting credits to her name, including both television and movie credits. Many of these are kung fu movies, but she also played a variety of roles, and has a directors’ credit to her name as well.
In our class, we know her as the landlady in KUNG FU HUSTLE.
(photo credit IMDB)
Samo Hung (Yuen Lung) was the Eldest Brother when Jackie Chan attended the China Drama School. He was very hard on Jackie, and although they were rivals and enemies, after they struck out on their own, Samo would find jobs for Jackie, and on several occasions “rescued” Jackie when he was down on his luck. As Jackie describes their relationship, even when giving Jackie a hand, Samo could not help but rub in the fact that he was the “senior” brother and that Jackie was in his debt.
Samo has made many movies and appeared in television series in China and the U.S.
He was the martial arts director in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA, and the action choreographer in KUNG FU HUSTLE.
(Photo credit: IMBD)
Yuen Wah has 191 acting credits in film and television. We know him from class as the landlord in KING FU HUSTLE, but he was also a stunt man in FIST OF FURY, and plays the role of the man who mocks Chen at the gate in FIST OF FURY.
(Photo credit IMDB)
Yuen Biao was an uncredited extra in FIST OF FURY, and although he has 130 acting credits to his name, our exposure to him in class had mostly been “behind the scenes.” He was a stunt double in DRUNKEN MASTER and a stunt man in FIST OF FURY.
(photo credit martialartsentertainment.com)
Corey Yuen is an actor, action choreographer, producer and director. He has 113 acting credits in movie and television, and in our class his presence was part of FIST OF FURY (Japanese fighter and stunt coordinator) and assistant stunt coordinator in DRUNKEN MASTER.
And of course, Jackie Chan (Yuen Lo). He began his movie career doing stunt work – where he developed a reputation for fearlessness bordering on foolhardiness from very early in his career. Certainly, his story reads like a rags-to-riches story with many setbacks and surprisingly scary moments in his life. He was a stunt man in FIST OF FURY, the writer and star of DRUNKEN MASTER (his former martial arts teacher from the academy plays a role in that film) and the Monkey Warrior in KUNG FU PANDA.
The risks he has taken to get a laugh in his movies are simply astonishing. He developed a reputation early on for doing stunts no one else would even consider. Here is a summary of the serious injuries Jackie has sustained in his film career, as listed in “I am Jackie Chan”:
Broken Bones – Nose (at least three times), broken ankle,nearly broken 7th and 8th vertebrae
Dislocations: Shoulder, Cheekbone, sternum, pelvis
Miscellaneous “other” injuries: Brain hemorrhage, damaged hearing in left ear, lost teeth, near suffocation while filming YOUNG MASTER, brow ridge injury that nearly cost him an eye while filming DRUNKEN MASTER, legs crushed between two cars, and arm accidentally slashed by a sword during a fight scene.
But interestingly, at both the beginning and end of the book, Jackie pays tribute to his teacher from the Opera Academy. He credits Master Yuen with giving him the courage, skill, and discipline that have helped him accomplish all that he has. While he acknowledges that Master Yuen was an extremely severe master, Jackie makes it clear that he loved the man in spite of all the toughness.
Martial Arts and Chinese Cinema 