Guest Essay: "The Part-Time Critic" Kyle Leaman pontificates on Jackie Chan's action-film retirement.

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From time to time, I'm able to offer a guest essay to my readers.  Today's guest author is Kyle Leaman.  Those who have been reading this site since the very beginning may remember Mr. Leaman and his work at The Part-Time Critic.  He was one of my first regular readers and someone who I linked to from time-to-time as his work was often both insightful and insanely comprehensive.  A couple years back (just before he retired from writing) he compiled a list, complete with mini-essays and YouTube excerpts, of the 100 greatest fights in Jackie Chan's action career.  It's so exhaustive that you may need a stunt man to get through it all in one sitting.  So when I read that Jackie Chan had announced that he was officially retiring from action films, Mr. Leaman was the first person I thought of.  I asked him if he had anything to say about it and he thankfully obliged.  So here is, unabridged and unedited save for token formatting, Kyle Leaman's "The Punctuation of an Action Career".      
The Punctuation Point of an Action Careerby Kyle Leaman
In 1978, a filmby the name Snake in the Eagle's Shadow becamea breakout action hit in Hong Kong and the star of the film, a 24-year-old JackieChan, followed it up with the equally successful Drunken Master. Chan then went on to release a major action film inevery single decade since, an unprecedented and unequaled 30-year run. To putthat into perspective, Jason Statham would need to keep making action filmsuntil the year 2032 just to draw even with Chan's run. Even I don't think Icould stomach that many Cranks and Transporters.
While promotinghis newest film at the Cannes film festival, Jackie declared that Chinese Zodiac would be his last actionfilm. The following day Jackie clarified the comments on his Facebook page,saying that the film would be his last "big action movie."  What exactly does Chan mean by "bigaction movie," and does this mean we should start writing eulogies for hisaction career? Is this the end of drunken boxing, super cops, and big stunts?Will everyday objects like ladders and clothes racks now cease to become propsof mass destruction? If we are to understand what Chan means to do with Chinese Zodiac, the punctuation that heis trying to put on his career, we really have to understand the story he hasbeen writing over the last four decades. 
After struggling to step out of the BruceLee sized shadow cast upon the entire Hong Kong film industry, Chan's 1978successes gave him the opportunity to begin casting his own shadow on what anaction film could be. In the following years, his projects began showing signsof his unique voice and vision, but it wasn't until 1983's Project A that Jackie's true potential and unique gifts would berealized in a single film. Project A(a film I consider to be Chan's most quintessential) would not only star a Chanthat did all his own stunts, but whom also wrote, directed, and choreographed thefilm as well. All of the elements that Chan has become so well loved for (broadphysical comedy of errors, homage's to silent film comedians, intricatelychoreographed fights, big stunts, and a family-friendly tone) are present inthis film. It's this prototype of film that I consider to be what Chan callshis "big action movie," and it's the first film that truly began towrite the story of what a Jackie Chan action film could be.
After ProjectA, Chan has been involved in over 50 film projects. I would categorize hispost-Project A projects as follows;day-player, role-player, and big action. What I am calling day-player projectsare ones where Chan is sparsely used and has no significant on-screen role orartistic control of the film. Examples of this are films like 1999's King of Comedy or the Kung Fu Panda series, and account forabout 1/5 of his projects. For this essay, we can dismiss these roles asinconsequential to the discussion.
Chan's role-player projects are ones thatfeature Chan in a significant on-screen way, but where he takes minimalcreative responsibility on the project. Chan may still do his own stunts andchoreography, but that's about as far as his creative control goes on theseprojects. Most of Jackie's American output falls into this category, such as Shanghai Noon, The Spy Next Door, and RushHour. Due to Chan's limited creative control of these projects, he's forcedto try and fuse his particular vision into in the larger artistic vision,producing a range of quality from pitiful (TheTuxedo and The Medallion) toexcellent (Shanghai Knights and The Karate Kid). By my count, nearly 2/5of his projects are of this kind.
At last we come to the defining categoryof Chan's filmography and the category that Chan claims he is retiring from,big action. These are projects on which Chan takes full control of nearly everyaspect and uses the film as a vehicle to showcase himself. Since these filmsallow Chan near free-reign, they also tell us the most about Chan's cinematicvision and disproportionately define his legacy. This category was initiated byProject A and makes up the final 2/5of all projects Chan would take on afterwards, including his newest film Chinese Zodiac. This is the type of filmJackie is retiring from, and by my accounts, has essentially been retired fromsince 2006's Robin-B-Hood.
After ProjectA in 1983, Chan almost solely devoted himself to the "Big Action Movie."This run ended after the mid-90s success of his big American imports like Rumble in the Bronx and Who Am I.  In 1998 Jackie made Rush Hour, his first role-playing project after over a decade ofbig action projects. The next six years were mostly comprised of hit-or-miss Americanmade role-playing projects, with an occasional Chinese film (The Accidental Spy) in between. Whilecreatively frustrating, I think this role-playing phase provided his body witha much needed rest from the physically and creatively exhausting toll his bigaction movies rang up.
In 2004, Chan returned to his big actionmovie roots with New Police Story.While featuring much of Chan's signature elements, it was ultimately a failedattempt by Chan to merge his successful pre-1998 output into the more modernaction template. Chan's big action follow-ups, The Myth (2005) and Robin-B-Hood(2006), were also creatively disappointing. Despite his efforts, Chan could notrecreate the commercial and artistic accomplishments of his previous big actionperiod.
Honestly, I think in these three films wewitnessed the outer limits of what Chan had to offer in the arena of bigaction. This isn't a knock or insult to Chan, I think it's just theacknowledgement that he had exhausted what he had to say in the action genre,his story was coming to a close. I suppose it would be like saying that MichaelJordan had run out of new basketball moves to show the world or that GordonRamsay ran out of new recipes; not an insult, just an acknowledgement ofreality.
I believe Chan recognized this as well,and that is why (beyond being physically exhausted) he has taken on thechallenge of an acting career outside of action. After a six-year hiatus(2006-2012) from big action projects, Chan returns to the big action movie withChinese Zodiac. Even without Chan'sannouncement, it seems to me that ChineseZodiac isn't a sign that Chan has found new creative energy and is enteringanother period of big action projects, but that he wants to close out his bigaction career before his body gives out (he's 58 years old), and so that the2004-2006 run would not be his final contribution to the story he'd beenwriting in the action genre for over 30 years.
Thus, it doesn't seem tragic for Chan tobe ending his big action career with ChineseZodiac; it seems more like the punctuation point on a sentence that hasalready ended. In an age where there is always the possibility for a star'scareer to be more like a repetitive run-on sentence, it can be refreshing for astar to recognize and mark the end.
Looking past the ending of Chan's bigaction career, I think we can still expect him to be involved with actionfilms, but in the role-playing sense similar to his American output from1998-2004. I think the big question his fans seem to be asking in regards to histransition to traditional acting is, "Does Chan have anything particularlyunique to say in the realm of drama, as he did in the realm of action?" Whilehe's only been in traditional roles for a few years now, the answer to thatquestion seems to be, "Not yet." He has seen some triumphs like2009's Shinjuku Incident and 2010's The Karate Kid, but he's mostly experiencedmixed results.  
Looking at Jackie Chan's career as of now,he can be understood to have made one of the most distinctive and uniquecontributions not only to the realm of action films, but to all of cinema. IfChan were to continue and finish his career with nothing but role-playingaction and drama projects of varying quality, then it would still mark animpressive coda to his already impressive career. To expect anything more fromhim is fairly unrealistic and worse, a bit greedy. So this December, call upyour friends, head to the theatre, and enjoy the punctuation point to a storythat Jackie Chan has been writing since 1983's Project A. Sitting in the theatre, I only hope the punctuation ismore exclamation than period.