Jackie Chan salute rumbling into academy's Samuel Goldwyn on Monday

Jackie Chan salute rumbling into academy’s Samuel Goldwyn on Monday

By Susan King

May 31, 2013 12 AM PT

Hong Kong martial arts superstar Jackie Chan has made more than 100 films, including his 1978 breakthrough, “Drunken Master,” and the “Rush Hour” trilogy of comedy-action blockbusters with Chris Tucker that have grossed nearly $900 million internationally.

His defy-defying stunts have astonished audiences. But after enduring decades of severe injuries including broken and dislocated bones and a near suffocation from a throat wound on “The Young Master,” Chan announced last fall that “Chinese Zodiac 2012” would be his last martial-arts action film.

Along the way, Chan has won numerous honors, including several Hong Kong Film Awards. Now the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is rolling out the red carpet for Chan, 59, with an in-person salute Monday evening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

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Besides a conversation with Chan, who made his film debut in 1962’s “Big and Little Wong Tin Bar,” the academy will screen his 1992 Hong Kong hit “Police Story III -- Supercop,” in which he plays a tough Hong Kong police detective.

The thriller is filled with some of Chan’s best-known stunts, including a leap from a roof of a tall building onto a rope ladder.

There’ll also be special gallery hours after the screening of the academy’s current exhibition of kung fu posters from the Stephen Chin collection.

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“I am super-excited about Jackie Chan,” said the academy’s Ellen Harrington, director of exhibitions and special events. “We had invited him to accept a salute and have been waiting for a time when he was able to be in the U.S.”

Said Chan, via email: “I am really looking forward to it. The academy came up with the idea and approached me with the opportunity.”

The original, subtitled release print of “Supercop” comes from the Academy Film Archive. “We decided it would be great to be able to showcase our print,” Harrington said.

“I did select this movie,” Chan said. “‘Supercop’ is the third of my ‘Police Story’ series and it was one of my favorite films.”

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Harrington describes Chan’s stunt work as an art form. She also called him “a modern-day silent-film comedian.”

“When you look at his movement, his humor and the pacing, he is like Buster Keaton but in a contemporary setting. I think to a certain degree he’s under-appreciated because his films are considered primarily genre pictures.”

Chan said that with his action days behind him, he would like to do more dramatic roles such as Mr. Han in the 2010 remake of “The Karate Kid” with Jaden Smith. “Maybe I will become the Asian Robert De Niro!”

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