His autobiography, I Am Jackie Chan, answers those questions in an engaging, almost novelistic style. When his father moves to Australia to take up a new job, the young Jackie is placed in Hong Kong's China Drama Academy under the tutelage of Master Yu Jim-yuen. For the next 10 years he is trained in martial arts, dance, acrobatics, singing, and comedy, while suffering extraordinary hardships, including regular beatings and near-starvation. Yet he can look back on this period of his life with considerable affection, not least because it taught him the skills, and provided him with the network of friends, that would sustain his film career for decades. Chan has always earned the respect of his fans by committing himself wholeheartedly to creating the most death-defying stunts possible. His achievements seem even more remarkable when set against the struggles described in this book. In the Drama School, as a young stuntman, in his first troubled attempts to make movies in America--Chan's personality shines through, and I Am Jackie Chan can only enhance his reputation as one of the most likable and admirable movie stars in the world. The book also includes Jackie's comments on all of his movies, lists of his favorite stunts and fights, and an astonishing catalog of all his major injuries. Can you imagine what it must feel like to dislocate your cheekbone? --Simon Leake

Product Description
As one of the biggest stars to burst into U.S. theaters, Jackie Chan has wowed audiences with death-defying stunts. But who really is this lightning-fast Charlie Chaplin of martial arts moviemaking? Now, in I Am Jackie Chan, he tells the fascinating, harrowing, ultimately triumphant story of his life: How the rebellious son of refugees in tumultuous 1950s Hong Kong became the disciplined disciple of a Chinese Opera Master. How the dying art of Chinese opera led Jackie to the movie business. And how he broke into Hollywood big time by breaking almost every bone in his body.