Category Archives: Jackie Chan

New Karate Kid movie with Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan in the works

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A global casting call from the two actors – looking for a new teenage star – suggests the separate strands of the series will be brought together

Following the success of the TV series Cobra Kai, a new Karate Kid movie featuring Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan has been announced, along with a global casting call to find a teenage star for the film.

Macchio, who starred in the first three Karate Kid movies between 1984 and 1989 before returning to anchor Cobra Kai which first aired in 2018, and Chan, who appeared in the 2010 reboot starring Jaden Smith, appeared together in a short video to make the announcement. The casting notice suggested the film will also feature a new character called Li Fong, who is “Chinese or mixed-race Chinese [aged] between 15-17 years old [and] speaks fluent English”. The website added: “Conversational Mandarin is a strong plus. He’s smart, scrappy and a skilled martial artist.”

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Jackie Chan-produced action movie films in devastated Syrian city

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The decision to produce a film glorifying China’s Communist party in a town destroyed by civil war has been described as ‘appallingly bad taste’

A Chinese action film executive-produced by Jackie Chan has triggered outrage after shooting scenes in al-Hajar al-Aswad, a Syrian town destroyed in the civil war.

Home Operation, directed by Song Yinxi, is inspired by China’s evacuation of hundreds of its nationals from Yemen in 2015 during the civil conflict there, and is the first joint venture between Chinese and Emirati producers. AFP reported that Song said the film was intended to glorify the Chinese Communist party (CCP): “It takes the perspective of diplomats who are Communist party members, who braved a hail of bullets in a war-torn country and safely brought all Chinese compatriots on to the country’s warship unscathed.”

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China’s go-to English bad guy Kevin Lee: ‘I’m happy to play a villain’

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The English actor, who has worked with Chinese directors from Jackie Chan to Zhang Yimou, reveals how a chance meeting at the visa office in Beijing changed his life

If the Chinese film industry needs a stock foreign villain, I’m their first port of call. I was a Gatling gun-wielding mercenary in 2015’s Wolf Warrior, one of the first of the new wave of military blockbusters, and a hitman in Jackie Chan’s Kung Fu Yoga in 2017, among many others. And I recently played an American colonel in the Korean war in The Battle at Lake Changjin, the most expensive and successful Chinese film ever: it made $909m (£675m) last year.

It’s surreal – coming from humble beginnings in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire – to find myself in the middle of a massive field in Hubei province filming the likes of The Battle at Lake Changjin. You’d think you were in a real-life warzone – there were hundreds of tanks supplied by the government. I grew up watching Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li movies, which kickstarted my passion for China. I originally came here to study martial arts in 2004. Then I came back 10 years later to work as a financial consultant, which I didn’t really enjoy.

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