Jackie Chan - How to Do Action Comedy

One of my favorite "Every Frame a Painting" videos is on Jackie Chan. If you haven't seen it be warned, it will ruin your view of almost all modern action fight scenes. [VIDEO]

Here’s a really cool video breaking down exactly how Jackie sets up his stunt-action-comedy. [VIDEO] One thing that was particular interesting to me is how the setup always starts with him at an extreme disadvantage: no shoes, tied to a chair, hanging upside down, etc. I never noticed it before and it’s exactly what makes his action so enjoyable to watch. (The YouTube Channel is called Every Frame a Painting and all the other videos are fascinating and very worth checking out.)

This episode of "Every Frame a Painting" does an excellent job of explaining why Jackie Chan's way of doing action is awesome and why contemporary Hollywood (generally) sucks: [VIDEO]

You'll probably enjoy this: [VIDEO] In particular, at 5:26, they show how Jackie edits hits to appear twice across cuts to aid in viewability.

Indeed! There is a great video essay about Jackie Chan's style (and how it differs from standard Hollywood action movies) on "Every Frame a Painting" Youtube channel: [VIDEO]

You can see this difference in the the films produced by him and his studio versus the american-produced ones. Every Frame a Painting has a good video on this. [0] Typically for films the shooting portion takes only a few weeks to finish, so lots of retakes = money lost. Jackie Chan does a lot of random flourishes in his films that end up with him needing a lot of takes. For example, how he scales fences. [1] The way he scales the castle wall in Wheels on Meals (1984) is probably my favorite example. [0]: [VIDEO] [1]: [LINK]

Shaky cams are abused in "western" cinema to hide the fact that the studios never have the time to give their actor skills to act out an action scene. In contrast, "asian" cinema either stars actors who can do a large chunks of their own action scenes, or spend time training them. On top of that, "western" cinema doesn't even know about how our eyes and brains perceive the world. Every Frame a Painting has a very good video essay on how Jackie Chan films action scenes: [VIDEO] Note how punches are filmed.

There’s a great quote from Jackie Chan about fight scenes: “I never move my camera. Always steady. Wide angle.” Most action scenes in movies have moving cameras with fast cuts and zoomed in faces. Makes it impossible to actually track what’s happening. I didn’t realize this until I saw this※ YT video specifically about his action comedy style. ※ - [VIDEO]