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Jackie Chan’s Performances as Modular Import: A Case Study of Snake in the Eagle’s
Shadow, Rush Hour, Bleeding Steel, and The Foreigner

Matt Stapleton, Clemson University

Abstract

This article analyzes the performance of Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan throughout his career,

with the purpose of displaying such work as indicative of a modular piece film makers are able

to insert into their work for a variety of political and artistic reasons. The discussion of the four

chosen films from Chan’s career centers around their placement in international culture, and how

the production companies utilize the similar performances by Chan in order to communicate

Chinese ideals and norms, with The Foreigner standing as an alternative progression of his style.

Ultimately, his work will be deduced as modular and able to be supplanted into a variety of

contexts due to his consistency in skill and ability.

Keywords: Jackie Chan, Hong Kong, China, film production, culture industries, Snake in the

Eagle’s Shadow, Rush Hour, Bleeding Steel, The Foreigner, slapstick, martial arts

Introduction: international superstardom

Jackie Chan has been a prominent figure in international film production for decades,

representing much of the influence that Hong Kong and China have been able to flex within

Western markets. Beginning as a child actor in 1962 in small Hong Kong martial arts films and

as an extra, Chan held little notoriety until his work with Bruce Lee, establishing his original

position as a continuation into the action genre. Ultimately, Chan was finally able to achieve

massive success in the 1980’s, being able to break Lee’s previous filmography records through

his work in East Asian markets. What truly separates Chan from other actors in this time frame

was his eventual explosion into Hollywood films, adapting his previous focus on action comedy
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or ‘slapstick kung fu’ to Western markets through buddy cop films, with 1998’s Rush Hour

(Ratner 1998) grossing over $240 million worldwide alongside a huge $140 million showing in

the United States alone (“Rush Hour”). This success has continued into the present day, with

Forbes citing Chan as the fifth top-grossing actor of 2019 with $58 million behind juggernauts

such as Dwayne Johnson and Robert Downey Jr. (Berg 2019).

Alongside the massive success enjoyed by Chan comes the dialogue about the cultural

exchange between the United States and China. Despite his roots in Hong Kong, Chan personally

identifies closer with mainland China per a 2019 series of interviews (Obenson), which I

attribute within this discussion to a closer perception and reflection of the PRC’s policies rather

than the progression of Hong Kong ideals. As such, some of Chan’s acting work becomes

representative of what Hunter defines as ‘soft power’ (2009) and is expanded upon in Kokas’s

Hollywood: Made in China. As opposed to military might, fearmongering and overwhelming

industrial and trade power in a region in order to accomplish goals, so-called ‘soft power is

developed by promoting cultural values and sympathy,’ with avenues more along the lines of

‘global brands, films and TV programmes, universities’ and other cultural-based institutions

(Hunter 2009, p. 375). The explicit goal of this direction becomes less about intimidation, and

more about the development of shared interests and goals to achieve success for one country’s

ambitions. An alternative term for this concept is ‘panda diplomacy,’ which views the

connections that China makes with foreign cities through its panda exchange between zoos, due

to the increase in revenue and interest that such animals bring; as a result of this economic

interest, there are certain policies that can be enforced by Chinese officials in these foreign cities

to guaranteed the continued presence of such powerful symbols (Hartig 2013, p. 68).
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In a similar fashion to the Western popularity of pandas, audiences in the United States

seem to eat up the performances by Jackie Chan, at least the ones targeted towards Western

audiences. As mentioned previously, Chan’s staying power over the last two decades in

Hollywood productions is nothing to scoff at and is a testament to his marketability as an actor.

His unique style that combines martial arts and comedy ‘[flouts] logic or the laws of probability,

with the humor often arising from various forms of incongruity or displacement’ through his

actions that often defy audience expectations for what a human body can perform or endure

(Szeto 2008, p. 233). He has successfully developed a mythology about himself, with such

physical performances becoming even more impressive to audiences because he ‘does his own

stunts,’ in a similar fashion to other stars with similar pedigrees such as Tom Cruise (Szeto

2008). To his credit, this is true in the vast majority of cases, which leads directly into the focus

of this article: the consistency and similarity of Chan’s various acting performances. Moviegoers

can expect, and do expect, to see him in a position where he is the scrappy, humorous underdog;

however, through the trials and tribulations of the plot he eventually belies this jolly demeanor

through wisdom and physical prowess of martial arts knowledge. Therein lies the modularity that

I aim to communicate through my analysis, as Chan’s generalized character can be lifted from

one movie to another. As a result, Chan’s performance stands as the most crucial element

continuous between his various movies: rather than just being a job, they become emblematic of

Chan’s real life persona, reflecting his current popularity in the present film landscape because

he truly embodies the entire genre of slapstick kung fu. I argue that Jackie Chan’s performances

are modular in the sense that they are surrogates for the real-life Jackie Chan himself. While

there are certainly other slapstick martial artists in popular films, none embody the genre quite as

intensely as Chan. He was the main proponent of the comedic style, with his films developing
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alongside his acting skills in a way that allowed him to achieve such immense international

success. Because of how consistent his performances are, I argue that the films Chan stars in

become a vehicle for Chan’s perception in the film audiences, with the movies produced

reflecting his utilization in a market economy.

As a result, three movies have been selected that are representative of such a

crystallization of his acting skills at various points of his career: Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow

(Yuen Woo-ping 1978), Rush Hour, and Bleeding Steel (Zhang 2017). However, I have selected

a fourth film as well that seems to display an awareness by Chan of such necessity for

performance, with his age beginning to affect his ability to act in a consistent manner pertaining

to his previous roles. The Foreigner (Campbell 2017) is a departure from the action comedy

flicks and stands as the most successful of his extraneous career beyond his modular product

typically produced. This analysis works through each film in a similar fashion in order to

communicate various aspects of these films, starting with a plot discussion. Following on this,

Chan’s specific functions in a film will be reviewed in order to look at his impact on the final

product’s social message. Finally, I will look into the production of the specific movie, as well as

how it produced or furthered political or economic interest for China.

Within this piece, I will be discussing the term ‘modular acting’ at length alongside the

complimentary term ‘crystallization.’ ‘Modular acting’ refers predominately to the ability of an

actor to perform in the exact same manner every single time they are put into a role; this differs

from typecasting and stereotyping in that a film company will not be looking to hire any actor

within a particular genre, and are rather looking for an exact performance from an actor to build

their movie around. ‘Crystallization’ is a discussion about the process of perfecting this

performance, wherein certain elements of such a role become cemented as an actor becomes
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more renowned in a cinema landscape. Thus, they become an embodied characterization of that

actor, rather than just the roles that they perform.

The Beginning of Slapstick Martial Arts

As mentioned previously, Jackie Chan’s acting career began to develop more after his

position as a stunt actor in some of Bruce Lee’s later films. His original film producer aimed to

have Chan become a true successor to Lee, with his stage name ‘Sing Lung’ or ‘Cheng Long’

meaning ‘become the dragon’ as a homage to Lee’s ‘little dragon’ moniker (Farquhar 2008, p.

139). It is imperative to note the primary series of film flops that Chan endured under his first

independent director, Lo Wei, who leaned too far into Lee’s shadow with nearly every aspect of

the film replicating Lee’s box office success (Hendrix 2014). None of Chan’s distinct style was

visible; instead, a serious, unfunny parody of Lee’s martial arts permeated the films and obscured

any individuality that Chan could have had. As a result, Chan began to suffer commercial failure;

he and Lee were very different actors, and he struggled to communicate the ‘kung fu drama’ that

Lee was able to produce consistently (Shu 2003, p. 55).

Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow was a departure from action films of the era, as well as an

evolution from the Bruce Lee style of serious filmography in favor of a more humorous and

slapstick path. It was characterized both by bodily humor as well as technical martial arts

prowess, in a much more compatible way to Chan’s acting style. Chan plays the protagonist of

the film, an orphan named Chien Fu at a martial arts school who begins to learn from an older

man about a rare kung fu style in order to protect himself from the other students at the school.

This style is known as ‘Snake fist style,’ giving the audience a partial understanding of the

movie’s title. Revealed through the action between Chien and his master, the Snake fist style is a
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persecuted form by a rival organization, the Eagle Clan, who eventually discovers that Chien is

one of the new practitioners of a style they believed had been wiped out in the past. The film’s

conflict is introduced through rival martial art schools posing a threat to the ‘Snake fist’ clan, as

well as a Russian assassin progressing such interschool conflict further.

Chien’s master is killed by an Eagle Clan martial artist, revealing the main tension within

the story: Eagle style beats Snake style through a series of counters and tricks, which leaves a

huge flaw in the way that Chien has grown accustomed to kung fu. The Eagle Clan have

perfected the ‘Eagle’s claw style,’ designed to beat Snake fist style. After being devastated by

the loss of his master, the audience is able to see what makes this movie unique from other kung

fu movies; Chien proceeds to invent a brand-new move for Snake-style, modeled after watching

his cat kill a snake in a moment of clarity. This novel style is known as the ‘Cat’s claw style’ in

honor of that scene. The movie concludes with a series of stunts and action scenes wherein Chien

finally kills the Eagle Clan villain. In true slapstick fashion, an additional ending is included

where the cook from the very beginning of the movie turns out to be another villain, dying of his

own poisoned food without the need for intervention from Chien.

Being Chan’s first break-out performance, the resulting movie is very straightforward as

formative for his acting style. His director, Yuen, allowed for much more creative freedom from

Chan, from the experimentation in design choices to allowing for martial arts styles that would

be more natural for Chan to explore. It was the development of a ‘self-parodying comic persona’

that really defined his acting style, with kung fu being seen as a vehicle for humorous body

action (Gallagher 1997, p. 25). Chan plays an underdog in this movie; he portrays the typical

rags-to-riches storyline through his mastery of a kung fu style but encounters serious resistance

that has to be solved through quick thinking and an ability to take this a little less seriously than
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everyone around him. This was an important distinction of the time, taking such artistry less

seriously in a public context; in fact, it marks a departure from Chan’s first movies as a child

where he adhered so closely to the teachings of kung fu that he took his teacher’s name in the

credits to reflect how the master system worked at the time. This softer approach towards the

traditionalism of kung fu breathed new life into the genre at the time; ‘Chan revised Lee’s life-is-

Kung-Fu philosophy into his Kung-Fu-is-fun worldview,’ which extended to audiences changing

how they viewed such films as well (Shu 2003, p. 55). This difference in figure also extended to

how Lee and Chan perceived themselves with regards to their bodies: while Lee focused more on

his strength and ruggedness, Chan took a demurer approach with his build, looking to be nimbler

and more responsive rather than brash and strong. The training scenes in which the two actors

appear differ. Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow offers a remarkable reference for Chan’s later The

Karate Kid (Zwart 2010) as a result of the non-traditional methods used by the teachers that

emphasize a more personal connection to the art through chores and fun, rather than physical

violence.

Extending this body analog of soft versus hard further, Chan’s character was also seen in

this film to be one to think outside the box. He is shown to be fallible as well, another departure

from the dramatic kung fu that Lee practiced on the big screen. Many of Lee’s protagonist roles

involved some amount of wit, but typically conflicts were handled by his careful understanding

of kung fu, with the dramatic tension typically being due to potential harm to others, or an equal

match. Chan’s character is very different; ‘whereas Lee’s character waits for the right moment to

fight and kill his opponent, Chan’s first impulse is to stay away from any trouble and avoid

confrontation unless it is absolutely necessary,’ which leads to many more situations in which

Chan’s sharp wit becomes a better tool than Lee’s strong body (Shu 2003, p. 55). Ultimately, this
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also distinguished the target audiences for each respective actors’ films, with the hard ruggedness

and power of Lee’s work being indicative of American markets, while the suave and quick-

thinking character appealed much more to the East Asian markets selected by Chan. It was even

a derivation from the traditional Hollywood idea of masculinity at the time, with ‘Chan using

flight as a survival strategy…’ instead of ‘Western male power [demanding] that the male

eventually cease flight and stand an attack,’ such as in the Rocky series that started slightly

before Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow (Gallagher 1997, p. 28).

Looking into these target audiences belies the juxtaposition of Hong Kong in the world at

the time, with the country still over 20 years removed from being reabsorbed into mainland

China. Rather than looking to American markets for success as Lee had done, typical East Asian

markets were considered instead, with much of the success for Seasonal Film Corporation (SFC)

already having been established in Hong Kong itself, Japan, and Korea. There are glimpses of

the fears that East Asian citizens might have endured at this time, with one of the early

antagonists in the film heralding from Russia, but nothing quite too complex beyond the

marketing strategies employed within. However, a much more interesting development arises

from Chan himself being ‘on loan’ from his original studio Lo Wei Motion Film Productions,

under the aforementioned director who had attempted to squeeze Chan into the same hole that

Lee’s death had caused in the film industry (Shu 2003, p. 55).

The success Chan enjoyed from Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow came from this loan,

ultimately influencing his future work. This is emblematic of the term ‘modular acting,’ which I

propose to mean an actor’s performance that can be separated from one unique film and placed

into another without many changes being necessary, outside of context. Of note, Chan’s next

film that very same year, Drunken Master (Yuen Woo-ping 1978), involved an incredibly similar
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character arc, wherein someone learns new styles of kung fu in a comedic environment in order

to defeat a greater evil, which could only have been accomplished by someone as quick-witted as

Chan. In that sense, a product has been created with a few distinct categories that Chan can now

mass produce: a character that knows kung fu, is put into a situation where they have to learn,

and ultimately triumphs as the underdog because of an ability to adapt in a comedic fashion. The

crystallization of Chan’s character would come later after years of acting experience, wherein the

exact same tropes would be applied to his work consistently; however, at this point the basic

structure of a modular slapstick kung fu persona had just been created. Chien’s development

through this film becomes symbolic for Chan’s career in real life; Chien struggles under the

initial teachings of his master and must seek out his own path in order to achieve greatness

within his origin story. In a similar vein, Chan was burdened by the legacy that Bruce Lee left for

him within the martial arts genre, unable to perform in dramatic stories with their contradictory

nature to his comedic persona. Ultimately, Chan’s creation and mastery of the kung-fu slapstick

genre mirrors the development of the ‘Cat’s claw style,’ ensuring international success in his

later work.

Importing Kung Fu Comedy to Hollywood

The year is now 1998, and Jackie Chan’s success has continued in the Hong Kong

markets. He’s now become one of their biggest superstars; in the time since Snake in the Eagle’s

Shadow, over 60 movies have been produced with him either in the producer’s seat or acting in a

starring role, and his cultural influence in East Asia has progressed to other media, including a

series of albums wherein he sings in English, Japanese, and Cantonese, which have become
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moderately popular in Japan and Hong Kong. Additionally, Chan has starred in a variety of

comedy action roles wherein he explicitly plays a Hong Kong police officer and is even starting

to experiment a bit with American markets through the Rumble in the Bronx (Tong 1995) series

(Sala 1997, p. 86). American director Brett Ratner takes note of this success, and Roger

Birnbaum Productions convinces Chan to be imported to American cinema to try his hand at a

buddy cop film where he plays a starring role. At this point, the buddy cop genre has been

successful for over a decade, with a wide variety of actors taking up roles: from Eddie Murphy

and Nick Nolte in 48 Hrs. (Hill 1982) to Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell in Tango & Cash

(Konchalovsky 1989). However, the vast majority of these performances entail some level of

masculinity, whether from the actions of the actors to the physique seen in how they portray

themselves. For Brett Ratner to select a relatively unknown Chinese actor and the non-

traditionally masculine Chris Tucker as his starring actors indicates a huge departure from the

tried and true norm at the end of the buddy copy era; and thus, Rush Hour is created.

Rush Hour stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker playing Detective Inspector Lee and

Detective Carter, respectively. The film opens on the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong, as

the British police pull out of the region. This leaves an opening for Hong Kong crime lord

Juntao, stealing priceless Chinese artifacts amongst the confusion. However, Lee is successful in

this first mission against the crime boss, who then retreats to America after Lee gifts precious

Chinese artifacts to the British before they leave. Meanwhile, Carter is a cop for the Los Angeles

Police Department who primarily works undercover missions, succeeding but costing the LAPD

a lot of money and pride in the process through his recklessness. Hong Kong diplomats arrive in

Los Angeles to open a conversation due to the change of sovereignty, but one of their daughters

is taken because of Juntao’s meddling.

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This leads to the driving plot of the film, where Lee is called in by one of the Hong Kong

diplomats to assist in the mission, but the LAPD decide to have Carter lead Lee on a wild goose

chase to keep this foreign detective out of their way. The two detectives butt heads at first, with

Lee even convincing Carter for a time that he doesn’t speak any English in a legitimate manner.

During these events, the audience becomes aware of the various racial tensions within Los

Angeles, exploring a range of Chinese and African American communities as their individual

cultures are explored. Despite bumbling around, Lee and Carter are still able to insert themselves

directly into Juntao’s eventual capture as a result of the sharp wit displayed between the two, as

well as some intense acrobatic stunts that portray the training Lee has received in Hong Kong

during his years as a police officer. A twist ending is revealed wherein the main British official is

shown to have bankrolled Juntao and is attempting to use this situation to receive the full ransom

for the diplomat’s daughter. However, once again the bumbling antics of Carter are able to save

the day, with the two detectives being given a trip to Hong Kong as a reward for their actions.

As mentioned previously, this role takes place two decades after Chan’s Snake in the

Eagle’s Shadow movie was released, giving the actor ample time to develop his individual

persona further. Rush Hour for Chan is characterized by Lee’s interactions in the United States:

from the way that he handles himself in public environments and adapts his kung fu style to the

new city, to the regard he gives to new minority groups that are introduced to the Chinese

national. This is defined by Shu as an understanding of multicultural management, as the

perceptions of one culture are directly overlaid onto the novel and static environment of another

(2003, p. 58). Such interaction allows for China to become perceived as subordinate to the

United States, even with shared interests between the two countries as they work towards a

common, positive goal; however, this relationship is seen as symbiotic, with neither partner
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becoming burdened by the other’s affairs. Chan becomes representative of China’s total

international ambitions. With this in mind, it is incredibly important for Chan to have developed

a crystallized character identity for the portrayal of a Hong Kong policeman in an American city.

Rush Hour spends little time actively developing the character of Lee; in fact, nearly all of the

personality evolution that occurs for the detective throughout the film is directly through the lens

of Tucker’s character Carter. Information is relayed as a result of Carter’s prying and discussion,

with Lee only offering personal knowledge if it is deemed relevant to a situation (for instance,

when mentioning the law enforcement identities of the main characters’ fathers for the purpose

of furthering a partner relationship). The overall story for Chan is not about the progression of a

character and personal development, and rather about the novel reactions that his character can

have in a new location outside of Hong Kong. It is a modular product inserted as a foundational

pillar for Rush Hour that the rest of the cast builds upon. This is because of how similar Chan is

able to perform across his various movie appearances; rather than needing to establish

background for the audience, there is a prior understanding that Chan will be playing the plucky

underdog who engages in slapstick kung fu as always.

In a similar fashion to Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Lee characterized by how differently

he acts to the way that the genre typically portrays its protagonists. While the buddy cop genre

involves more of the comedy that Chan infuses into his work, it still shares similarities with kung

fu drama through the rugged manliness of its main characters. His personal identity ‘challenges

Western definitions of masculinity, suggesting the tenuousness of ostensibly stable, historically

rooted models of male agency and control’ because of the feminization of his action (Gallagher

2004, p. 119). He primarily handles conflict once again through evasion and deception,

preferring to outsmart or outlast his opponent rather than confronting them head-on. Chan lacks
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the muscular build that audiences have seen with Stallone or even with Will Smith in Men in

Black (Sonnenfeld 1997), which released the prior year, instead staying just as lithe and agile as

in his previous performances and lacking the raw intimidation factor that is shown in similar

films. This is compounded even further by the addition of Chris Tucker as his foil; rather than

displaying more of the outward masculinity as some of the duos do in buddy cop films, like the

muscular Stallone to the pudgy-but-funny Russell, Chan’s character’s feminized traits are echoed

in Tucker’s character even more intensely. The concept of being ‘slim, svelte, and young [is]

important’ to the female character in Hollywood, representing attractiveness and being the

dichotomy of the bulky male, but neither Tucker nor Chan have any bodily masculinity to speak

of compared to their hulking counterparts (Holmlund 2002, p. 9). Their dialogue becomes the

last bastion of traditional masculinity, and is the main foil for the two characters: whereas Tucker

portrays the stereotypical playboy chauvinist, flirting with women to an extreme degree, all of

Chan’s interactions with women in the film boil down to comedy or domestic protection,

following ‘the Hollywood tradition of depicting Asian men as entirely without sexuality’

(Gallagher 2004, p. 130).

How do you introduce an Asian character into a traditionally multicultural society such as

Los Angeles and make it feel natural? Rush Hour even has a major part of the film take place in

Chinatown, where Chan’s character should mesh right in based on previous Hollywood

stereotypes. Gallagher states that ‘Rush Hour emphasizes the foreignness of its Asian star,’

turning Chan into a caricature of a Chinese native by giving him a tourist identity (2004, p. 127).

Extra care is also taken to ensure that the majority of Chan’s dialogue scenes are around another

minority population as well, through the African American communities in Los Angeles. At one

point, Chan even refers to one of Tucker’s compatriots using a casual racial slur he heard in
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passing, not understanding how offensive it might be for it to be used in such a context. An

ignorance-is-bliss approach is taken by much of the cultural context given to the two actors, with

the goal of displaying how similar the two men are in upbringing and comedic style despite their

ethnic distance. Chan’s modular role is added alongside Tucker’s comedic persona by having

this tourist fantasy emphasizing ‘the other’ play out, ‘[containing] the culturally significant

aspects of Asian male stars within particular narrative frameworks’ by stereotyping both the

Chinese martial artist and effeminate black male, which allows for audiences to approach such

characters in broader appeal (Gallagher 2004, p. 130).

Rush Hour takes a very interesting approach to what was a cultural incident in 1998 by

having the plot structured and stimulated by the end of imperial British rule in Hong Kong. This

demarcation is clear in the discussions of characters, but what remains intentionally foggy

throughout the film is the dividing line between Hong Kong and China. The film was primarily

produced in the United States, with the Hong Kong being used as location of the early few

scenes to lend agency to the foreign affairs featured in the plot. The removal of the British is

shown as subtly negative, with an indication that the lack of law enforcement agencies might

allow crime moguls more power in the region, but the film also signals a continuation of Western

friendship in the region despite the departure of the British. The friendship between the United

States and Hong Kong in Rush Hour serves as a ‘commingling of the Hollywood dream factory

and the Chinese Dream,’ with the positive cooperation between the countries in this film

reflecting such ideals onto audiences about their compatibility (Kokas 2017, p. 37). The Hong

Kong diplomats are pleased to arrive in America: with the British rule ended, they are free to

explore new territory and diplomatic relationships as the most open of China’s provinces at the

time, while still representing a level of Chinese economic and political interest in the region. The
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‘secret’ villain of the movie is even depicted as British rather than American, alluding once more

to the connection that Hong Kong and America can have in solving issues for the betterment of

both countries.

Collaboration between the countries and the positive perception of diplomacy can

influence the audience’s opinion on such issues, with the media industries playing a significant

role in enabling the goals of the PRC’s influence (Kokas 2017, p. 94). This even mirrors the

marketing work performed by Ratner within the production and distribution of this movie, with

China’s break from Britain becoming an opportunity for collaboration between the Hong Kong

movie industry and Hollywood’s own production studios. Showing the two countries as allies

also led to the sequel, Rush Hour 2 (Ratner 2001), to predominately take place in Hong Kong to

an even greater international success than its progenitor. Chan’s role in this connection cannot be

understated; he played the same crystallized character and ensured that the adaptation to Western

markets would be successful by allowing said Western film producers to predominately play of

off his placement in the plot. The imported Chan performance was as high quality as Ratner was

hoping for, based on the success of the films and Chan’s immense breakout into Western media

at this point.

Bleeding Profit

Over the next two decades, Chan continued to progress onward as an international

superstar, remaining one of the top earning actors in the world for almost that entire length of

time (Berg 2019). His production schedule remained about the same as the previous two-decade

gap, accomplishing a little over 60 films once again in such a similar time frame. 2017 was even

one of his more prolific years, with five different films coming out that had his name attached.
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For reference, Chan was took part in the most films in 1973, with a staggering nine credits to his

name in this time frame. Bleeding Steel is one of two movies from this year that I will be

discussing in this piece, being the film more centralized on Chan’s now completely crystallized

kung fu figure despite being released after The Foreigner. Unfortunately, it also stands as one of

Chan’s movies with the worst reception, with a 23% audience score alongside being ‘Certified

Rotten’ (Rotten Tomatoes). Simon Abrams even stated that the film ‘[was] unfortunately just one

film in a string of lackluster globe-trotting action films that struggle to confirm Chan’s decades-

old self-image as pop culture ambassador,’ although stating that he felt Lionsgate was apt in

trying to have this film succeed (2018).

The film stars Chan alongside other smaller Hong Kong and Australian stars, being a

joint production by the two countries. Chan plays Special Agent Lin Dong, whose daughter Xixi

is suffering heart failure. After some action involving a supernaturally muscular Callan Mulvey

playing Andre, the two both suffer intense injuries that force them to receive some

biomechanical parts. Jumping years into the future in Australia, the audience is introduced to the

driving narrative of the film, where an author had heard through unnamed sources about a little

girl who was given biomechanical organs as well. A shadow organization kills the man, and

seemingly gets away with information until the arrival of a benevolent covert agent and also

Dong. Dong is identified, and the shadow organization is revealed to be led by a now fully-

cyborg Andre. Xixi is also shown to have survived, now going by ‘Nancy’ and having grown up

as an Asian Australian in an orphanage without any memories of her former life. Dong has been

following her, as any good parent would; however, his interference in Andre’s plans for

Xixi/Nancy cause her and a friend to get caught up in the action. Xixi is also revealed to have

been operated on as a child and received the same biomechanical parts that Dong and Andre
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have also acquired, albeit with a much better reception. After some more plot and humorous

action sequences occur, including a stunt shot on top of the Sydney Opera House to give a sense

of location to the viewer, our protagonist group and Andre square off, as Andre says that he

needs Xixi’s blood in order for his cyborg parts to stop being rejected by his body. After the

group kills Andre and his organization, a twist ending is revealed where Xixi’s friend is selling

information about the event to the highest bidder.

For relevant context, I believe that it is imperative to discuss the import value of this

movie before a discussion of Chan. It fits directly into the public paradigm that ‘American film

distributors consider Asian movies…to be niche imports,’ as the film received an extremely

limited run and direct-to-digital release in the Western markets beyond Australia (Abrams 2018).

The English dubbed version has many glaring flaws; the two most prominent are Chan’s

mispronunciation of the antagonist, varying between Andre, Andrew, and Andrea, and Xixi’s

friend at the end referring to Jackie Chan by actor name, rather than by character. The spectacle

of the film instead revolves around the slapstick comedy, which leans very much into the iconic

Three Stooges version of funny physical pain, and Chan’s own acrobatic feats that display strong

action choreography. Here lies the most prominent form of Chan’s crystallized character, as the

film offers very little in terms of plot development: he plays a police officer, he solves things

because he is smart and prone to acrobatic action, and he serves as the underdog with something

to lose throughout the entire movie. Chan’s role is almost identical to every other police officer

position that he has played previously, becoming a carbon copy performance that displays an

understanding by the filmmaker that the scrappy, witty Chan is the direction for this movie. It

was an imported performance, not done for the attempt to create something masterful or

culturally impactful, but instead to consolidate through the use of soft power the relationship
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between Australia and China. Much like Abrams’s claim, Chan is still the cultural ambassador of

sorts for China, and with ‘brands [being] essential to the experience economy,’ this imported

performance was precisely what was being communicated (Kokas 2017, p. 40). Such stable and

straightforward acting provided a neutral environment for the movie, one that was devoid of any

political performance by Chan in favor of an apolitical production between the movie industries

of Australia and China (Gallagher 2004, p. 132).

The United States and Hong Kong at this point of film production have enjoyed over 30

years of success, with a variety of international vehicles such as the aforementioned Rush Hour

series being able to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars in box office revenue. Australia

has also had moderate success working with Hong Kong, but nothing quite to the extent of these

mega-hits. Initially, Australia performed well as an international ambassador for some of Hong

Kong’s cinema, being able to popularize the kung fu genre in Western markets through the

distribution of heavy hitters such as The Man from Hong Kong (Teo 2001). Films such as

Bleeding Steel should serve as important contributions to Australia and China’s cultural capital,

as their success promotes additional collaboration between the two countries for future film

development. However, the rejection of such a film such as Bleeding Steel in international

markets effectively parrots the struggle of the antagonist within the plot, with the artificiality of

the transplants causing such rejection in the general public as well.

A need for an apolitical message allows Chan to become a strong cultural ambassador for

Chinese acting studios, and his participation once again reflects his general audience appeal at

the time of production. Bleeding Steel was a co-production between Heyi Pictures and Perfect

Village Entertainment, which are both based in China. However, Perfect Village Entertainment

is actually the Chinese extension of Village Roadshow Pictures, an American company with
 Stapleton 19

stake in retaining film interests in Australia for the purpose of movie production and filming.

Bleeding Steel was almost transactional in nature; it received poor reviews from audiences and

critics, but at the very least broke even on sales returns in the box office, with $49 million

revenue coming predominately from Chinese sales. . It had very minimal success in Australia,

with only 18 theaters even releasing the film to audiences, which also indicates the target

audience of the film to be the Hong Kong and Chinese markets (Box Office Mojo). The film’s

cultural themes appeal mostly to Asian audiences, with the protagonists once again embodying a

non-normative masculine perception of their body image, to the extent that the female main

character participates greatly in the combat at the end of the movie’s climactic battle sequence.

Films such as Bleeding Steel become more of a vehicle for Jackie Chan to ensure his character

stays crystallized for the later imports of his performance; directors and producers need to see

that, regardless of the film’s quality, Chan always delivers on being acrobatic and comedic.

Foreign Concepts for Chan

Ageing is one of the harder concepts for many film actors to grapple with, as physical

and mental skills diminish with time. Actors in other media worry less as medical intervention

progresses, though ‘mature adulthood is [now] seen primarily in chronological, biological, and

medical terms,’ at least with regards to the roles actors will be portraying in television shows

(Holmlund 2010). However, these are predominately performed by white and black men

specifically, with Asian men representing less of this growing field of ageing actors who still

achieve success. In particular with Jackie Chan, the physical effects of ageing can be massively

detrimental to his career centered on physical prowess, as his previously modular stock character

that he is able to play becomes less and less useful to movies as his ability to do acrobatic stunts
 Stapleton 20

decreases. His comedy and wit may remain intact, but the mythology created about Chan doing

all of his own stunts starts to degrade, and with it comes the degradation of an international

superstar. The Foreigner seeks to solve this problem for Chan and represents a massive turning

point in his performing career. While he has acted in roles that demand a level of drama or non-

action scenes, they have not been well-received and seem to put Chan out of his comfort zone.

Self-produced The Foreigner bucked that trend with a film that placed both Chan and Pierce

Brosnan into roles that explored their dynamic acting skills, allowing them to make up for such a

perceived lack of authenticity by an audience for not adhering to their typical roles.

Chan plays Ngoc Minh Quan, a former Vietnam soldier now residing in London with his

daughter in a noodle restaurant. The plot starts hard and fast as Quan’s daughter is killed in a

terrorist bombing, with Quan desperately trying to find out who was responsible for such an

incident. Liam Hennessey, played by Brosnan, is a former IRA leader who now works for the

British government, and is identified by Quan as someone who might be able to point him to the

correct location in his search for the identity of the terrorists. Quan travels to Northern Ireland in

order to pressure Hennessey further by setting off a bomb at his office, after which Hennessey

looks into his previous connections with the IRA in order to identify the bomber more readily.

With the old IRA activated, they start a manhunt to find Quan before he kills Hennessey for

information, with the leaders becoming trapped at a Belfast home as Quan practices guerilla

warfare in the woods, outsmarting the IRA grunts, but ultimately getting injured. The IRA

leadership comes to a standstill as to how they should handle the bombings, with a discrepancy

after one bombing reveals a connection to The Troubles in Ireland and one specific leader of the

IRA. Quan realizes this and invades the townhouse, trapping Hennessey and forcing him to

reveal the bombers’ names and location.

 Stapleton 21

Political intrigue plays out as it is revealed that the next target for the bombs is a plane

full of diplomats, with a small explosive hidden in a journalist’s laptop. Quan is able to

neutralize the situation and kills most of the individuals present, with the IRA cleaning up the

rest of the issue. As Quan blackmails Hennessey by sending pictures of the latter cheating on his

wife to Internet bloggers, the public turns on the political figure and begins to investigate his ties

to the IRA.

The Foreigner is a film marked by its characters not acting in their normal roles. Pierce

Brosnan’s character as a double-agent IRA officer trends quite far from his James Bond persona,

developing his character in both a nefarious but also sniveling light. He is a scared animal within

this movie; instead of being the handsome action star on the front lines of combat, he retreats

into a protected den and pulls the strings from isolation. There is a moment where the audience

sees the wrath of Hennessey, as he shoots a fellow IRA leader in the kneecap for disobeying him,

but for the most part he plays very placidly so as to keep suspicion off of him and his post. Chan

also contradicts his previous character identities, with a stark departure from the safer role of an

acrobatic comedic superstar that audiences typically enjoy. He becomes stoic, sad and hellbent

on revenge; there is no happy-go-lucky Chan underneath this exterior, and instead the viewer

meets grizzled war veteran who went toe-to-toe with the Vietcong. His skills revolve around

deception and stealth, rather than cleverness and athleticism, with an injury during the first third

of the movie firmly removing him from active combat. Chan is still portrayed as a sympathetic

figure, but any aspect of childish charm from his previous films is lost as Chan tortures those he

captures in his raid on the IRA compound. This feels more like the Rambo characters that Chan

had shrugged off in his past, with a very heavy intellectual emphasis placed on violence. Chan
 Stapleton 22

still remains his lean, demure self; the rugged look comes more from the makeshift ghillie suit he

produces, as well as the mud and dirt from hunting IRA soldiers in the woods.

One factor in the production of this film that allowed Brosnan and Chan to deviate from

their normal performance comes from the primary companies involved, which IMDb states as

Sparkle Roll Media, Wanda Pictures, H. Brothers, and TMP. Discussed in a 2002 article, Jihong

and Kraus would view the production push towards major actors such as Jackie Chan and Pierce

Brosnan as ‘[applying] the tactics of commercial film to add audience appeal,’ which can also be

seen in the targeting of Chinese markets for the film via earlier release dates by nearly a week

compared to the rest of the world, which included a worldwide premiere in Beijing. The film

characterizes the governmental bodies of Northern Ireland and Britain as the primary

antagonists, with the portrayal of foreign entities coupled with a Chinese actor serving as

moderator allowing for the bucking of Hollywood trends that portray Asian and Middle Eastern

nationals as the terrorists (DeBruge 2017). The growing influence of Chinese culture in these

Western countries is suggested with Chan’s character helping to resolve the central conflict.

Britain and Ireland essentially require the help from Quan in order to restore their order,

as well as help to clean up toxic governmental systems in the aftermath. The insertion of Chinese

values, embodied in Chan’s character, into a Western system of power is what ultimately drives

the tone of the film. China’s history of revolution emphasized a their police force that utilized

‘periodic outbursts of state-fomented disorder intended to purify and redirect the revolutionary

creed,’ with some Chinese nationals being supportive of such action due to ‘the cultural and

ideological values…crucially [determining] the nature and quality of state-society relations”

(Brewer et. al. 2016, p. 3). While not portrayed explicitly as a Chinese national in the film, and

rather as an expatriate, Chan’s performance of Quan is representative of China as a whole,

 Stapleton 23

serving as arbiter in international conflicts. Despite living in London, Quan still refers back to his

roots greatly, becoming part of ‘a racial form of identification extending beyond the boundaries

of the nation-state…a category of people of Chinese descent who no longer live on Chinese soil

but are still considered to be racially Chinese’ (Louie 2000, p. 649), which allows for Chan’s

character to remain a Chinese influence despite his cosmopolitan status. In fact, his racial

identity is further ascribed an importance through his crude identification throughout the film as

‘the Chinaman.’ This nomenclature comes directly from the novel The Foreigner was based on,

Stephen Leather’s The Chinaman from 1992.

Ultimately, I believe the depiction and characterization of Jackie Chan’s character Ngoc

Minh Quan lends credence to the understanding that this film was funded mostly by Chinese

movie studios and produced by Chan himself, capitalizing on the perception of tension and

unease in Western civilization that has led to the need for neutral third parties to begin to

interfere in their political systems in order to benefit the international population. Despite

focusing much of the movie on the affairs of the New IRA and how the organization has begun

to fall apart as its previous members have gotten older, the movie persuades the viewer to look

into the deficiency of strength and intelligence that plagues this organization, as well as the

ineptitude of the British government and military to actually take matters into their own hands

regarding domestic terrorism. Quan is needed in order to solve issues because of his training in

China, and because of his Chinese heritage he becomes a stand-in for the influence of the

Chinese cultural and political industries into Western affairs. The Chinese national identity

becomes the centerpiece for this film, as well as how a Chinese national can improve the

Western environment through action. Arguably, it is massively important for Chan to not just be

a derivation of his normal crystallized role, as that would be much less applicable to the political
 Stapleton 24

situation confronted in the film. His slapstick kung fu persona would not lend the necessary

seriousness to this production.

Chan’s Future as Crystallized Modular Identity

How does the purpose of a crystallized set of performances impact the overall global

media industry landscape? Regarding movies in action-based genres, the quality and consistency

of a performance can make or break a film, particularly when it comes to enormously recognized

actors. There are multiple ways for actors to build brands in the current era, however; one such

particular avenue may be through social media, wherein stars such as Dwayne ‘The Rock’

Johnson ‘[commands] an eager audience in family-friendly and comic roles’ because of his

consistency in likability and position in movies that revolve around masculine action sequences

(Ward 2019). Similar to Chan, Johnson got his start in the media industry within combat-based

positions while in the World Wrestling Federation: this was a position that ‘contributed most

effectively to his aptitude for this profoundly public landscape…[due to his] background in one

of the most notoriously clandestine industries within popular culture’ (Ward 2019). Chan’s

original roles in Hong Kong films mirrored this in a generalized sense as audiences would hold

certain actors they enjoyed in high regard, effectively building a cult following in the same vein

as Bruce Lee. Johnson also possesses many qualities indicative of a modular acting position in

his movies, with most characters he plays being smoldering musclemen who solve their

problems by being bigger and cooler than their counterparts.

Johnson is one of two actors who have exploded onto the Chinese action scene, with the

other being Jason Statham. Respectively, the two movies they produced for the explicit targeting
 Stapleton 25

of Chinese markets were Skyscraper (Thurber 2018) and The Meg (Turtletaub 2018). Both

movies have such crystallized, generic performances that the actors have been imported for: in a

sense, action movies ultimately become vehicles for such performances, with the character being

supplanted from setting to setting for whatever best fits the current media landscape. Statham

always plays the suave, action-driven know-it-all who can think or drive his way out of any

situation, whether it be in a car in the Transporter (Yuen & Leterrier 2002) series or a submarine

in The Meg. They are softball passes to the Chinese markets by major movie studios; these actors

make it through the PRC because of their neutral tone and atmosphere. They need to be

apolitical, which requires an apolitical performance from an actor, thus requiring the modular

performance from a well-known actor to ensure success. A Chinese movie studio can incorporate

digestible American themes to Chinese audiences not by hiring an American action actor, but

rather hiring Dwayne Johnson to play the exact style of character that he has played on average

in his other performances. Kokas defines this as ‘brandscaping,’ a term which entails the massive

expansion of research into various regions and keeping similar experiences in order to

understand and popularize the culture surrounding such an event (2017, p. 42). The consistency

of a performance leads to much better market success when looking into brandscapes, with both

audiences and studios knowing exactly what to expect when they hire an actor or watch a movie.

With that in mind, the modular performance of the actor becomes that literal brandscape: an

audience member knows that, when viewing a Jackie Chan performance, they can expect a

scrappy underdog story featuring a male who is effeminate and performs interesting stunts on his

own accord. Knowing this, the Chinese film agencies are able to export Chan into films that

require that exact character, with the added flair that it becomes another rendition of Jackie Chan
 Stapleton 26

being ‘himself’ in a film. Such consistency is the way to thrive in globalized industries such as

film production, for the explicit purpose of ensuring a product contains no defects.

Conclusion

This star study aimed to create the foundation for models wherein actors can be described

through the modular performance they are able to deliver. Kokas’s description as to the need for

consistency and coherency in media production landscapes relates directly to the work of an

actor, as the performance they are able to deliver to a studio becomes a product in-and-of itself

that is imported. Audiences can recognize such name-brand products as they would Google or

Apple, coming into a situation with a general understanding of how a movie will play out. This

can even help filmmakers such as in the instance of Rush Hour, where characters do not need to

be expanded upon because of their acting history. Actors representative of their home nation that

are imported into foreign markets seem to be the most likely to behave in such a way when

selecting and filming movies, leading to a targeted group for research in future discussion.

Word Count: 8,061 words

The author has reported no conflict of interest with regards to this article.

Author Biography: Matt Stapleton is a second-year master’s student at Clemson University,

with a focus on international media and games studies. He has no idea which PhD program he

will be attending in the fall, although it will probably be UCF’s Texts and Technologies at this

point.
 Stapleton 27

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