Is the video of Jackie Chan and his daughter crying while watching stunts from the actor's old films true?

In the summer of 2023, a video went viral on social networks in which the action star and his daughter allegedly could not hold back their tears at the sight of dangerous scenes from cult films with the participation of the artist. We have verified the authenticity of the video and this touching story.

There are several versions of the viral video, which differ in length and voice-over music. In a short version of the video, Jackie Chan is shown crying and a girl holding the actor’s hand is supposedly his daughter. At the same time they look stage Chan's fall from the film Project A (1983). The longer version shows the actor's stunts and injuries from various films of past decades, and the following conversation supposedly takes place between Chan and the girl in Chinese (the video has English subtitles):
- Were you hurt?
- Very.
- Dad, you're awesome!

On social networks, the video is accompanied by different descriptions. For example, in "VKontakte» in public «Behind the scenes...“(3,300 likes with 141,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), the video was accompanied by the following caption: “69-year-old Jackie Chan and his daughter rewatched the most dangerous scenes from his films. - Were you hurt? - Yes! - Dad, you're awesome! The actor could not hold back his tears.” Similar posts appeared in public Vine video (16,300 likes / 728,000 views), "English with a cup of coffee" (630 / 37,000) and "Magazine about famous people"(700 / 19,000), as well as in the Telegram channel "Celebrity News"(2900 / 57,000). There are also publications where the actor’s daughter is not mentioned, but only report that Chan could not hold back his tears at the sight of his old action films. Such posts can be found in public pages “You won't believe it!"(15,700 likes / 844,000 views), Marvel/DC (6800 / 158 000) and "Typical Izhevsk"(1400 / 77 000) on VKontakte. The video went viral not only in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, according to the calculations of the agency’s journalists AFP, in total, by mid-August 2023, the viral video had received several tens of millions of views in different countries around the world.

Using a screenshot of a viral video and conducting search based on the pictures, “Checked” in Google results found references to the feature film “Kung fu stallion" According to description tape on IMDb, Jackie Chan played the role of an experienced stuntman who lives with his horse. For the key phrase “Kung Fu stallion Jackie Chan cries” “Verified” was found on YouTube video entitled “The daughter learned the truth and forgave her father,” published on June 10, 2023 and representing a fragment of the film. The visuals of this scene completely coincide with the footage of the viral video, but the editing and musical accompaniment differ. In addition, we watched the film in its entirety and made sure that there really is such a scene in it - it begins at the 79th minute.

Although in some Russian-language trailers the pictures statedthat Jackie Chan played himself, in fact his hero name is Master Lu. The main character's daughter played Chinese actress Liu Haoqun, which is also about it says in one of the official commercials.

In addition, many publications claim that the video shows Chan at 69 years old. Actor was born April 7, 1954, so in the summer of 2023, when the viral video began to circulate, his age was as stated. However, "Kung Fu Stallion" started shoot in September 2021, and finished in November of the same year. That is, during the filming process the actor was 67 and a half years old. By the way, the premiere of the film took place April 7, 2023 - Chan's birthday.

As for the dialogue between the on-screen father and daughter, there are different versions of the translation. As mentioned above, the heroine Liu Haoqun asked Chan's character if he was in pain while performing stunts. "Verified" tracked the following versions of the response:

• “Very” (A lot, English subtitles from viral video);
• “I don’t know” (Dunno, English subtitles from the website Bilibili.tv);
• “A lot” (in response to the phrase “There was so much pain”, Russian dubbing from "Mosfilm-master");
• “A lot” (similar to the previous case, Kazakh voice acting from Cinema Tone Pro studio); 
• “I don’t remember” (Russian voice acting from the studio "Cube in Cube").

According to several native Chinese speakers interviewed by Verified, what Chan's character is really saying is that he has already forgotten everything.

If you believe biographies Chan on his official website, he does not have a daughter, he has only a son - a musician and film actor Jaycee Chan. However, for example, in the actor’s profile on IMDb indicated another child is a daughter named Etta Ng. In his memoirs, Chan wrote, that he cheated on his wife Joan Lin with actress Elaine Ng, who received the title of “Miss Asia” in 1990, but did not recognize his illegitimate daughter. At the same time knownthat Elaine Ng gave birth to a daughter in 1999. 19 years later, Etta Ng published on YouTube video in which introduced herself daughter of Jackie Chan, spoke about her homosexuality and said that because of “homophobic parents” she had to sleep on the street. At the end of the same year, in an interview with the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, the girl statedthat she has never met her famous father and doesn’t want anything from him.

So the video that has gone viral does indeed show Jackie Chan crying while watching his real stunts, but it is actually just a scene from a feature film where the actor plays a fictional character. The picture next to Chan is not his real daughter, but an actress. Of course, we cannot exclude the fact that the artist could really be moved on the set and his tears were not an acting technique. However, the lack of mention in publications that this is a scene from a film may mislead readers.

Cover photo: still from the movie “Kung Fu Stallion”

Half-truth

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