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TOP 10 STUNTS
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READ THIS FIRST
DO NOT TRY ANY OF THIS. I mean it. Jackie Chan trained every single day from when he was seven years old, he has a whole team of professional stuntmen who plan every jump for weeks, and he STILL broke his skull. You are not him. I am not him. Last summer my buddy Matt jumped off his carport onto a stack of old tires from the shop because he said Jackie would, and he sprained his wrist and couldn't drive for a month, and Jackie would not have done that, because Jackie would have planned it. Mr. Johansen at my dojang has one rule about movie stunts: we watch them, we don't do them. That's my rule too. If you write me and tell me you tried one of these, I'm not writing back.

OK. Here are my ten favorites, ranked by how hard my jaw dropped. One line each, because you should see them, not read about them.

1 The pole slide, Police Story (1985). Off a balcony in a shopping mall, onto a pole wrapped in lights, all the way down through the bulbs. Burned his hands. They show it about three times from different angles because you can't believe it the first time.
2 The clock tower, Project A (1983). Hanging off the hands of a clock, way up, then he lets go and falls through two cloth awnings to the street. Three takes. Look how he lands.
3 The helicopter ladder, Supercop (1992). Hanging off a rope ladder under a helicopter over Kuala Lumpur, with buildings going by. No net I could see.
4 The balloon jump, Armour of God (1986). At the very end he jumps off a cliff onto a hot air balloon. This is the same movie where the tree branch almost killed him, and he went back to work.
5 The rooftop jump, Rumble in the Bronx (1995). Off one building, across the alley, onto a fire escape. The one that got me into all this. Still gives me goose bumps.
6 The umbrella and the bus, Police Story (1985). He hooks the handle of an umbrella onto a moving double-decker bus and hangs on. I tried hanging from an umbrella in the garage once (standing still). The umbrella lost.
7 The building slide, Who Am I? (1998). Slides down the slanted glass side of a skyscraper in Rotterdam, in Holland, start to finish, and the camera pulls back so you see the whole building. I've only seen the clip on a TV special. It's on my want list below.
8 The ladder fight, First Strike (1996). A whole fight with an aluminum ladder. He fights with it, on it, through it. Mr. Johansen watched this one at my house and rewound it twice.
9 The wind tunnel, Operation Condor (1991). A fight inside a giant wind tunnel where everybody keeps getting blown around. Funniest fight on the list.
10 Jackie vs. Benny Urquidez, Wheels on Meals (1984). Not a jump, a fight, against a real kickboxing champion. Fastest kicks I've ever seen. It's on this list because it's the best fight he ever filmed, and I'll fight anybody who says different. (Not really. See rule above.)

Years are when they first came out in Hong Kong, not when they got to America.

THE HONG KONG TAPE HUNT

Here's the thing nobody tells you. An actual tape from Hong Kong won't play on an American VCR, because they use a different TV system over there (PAL) than we do. So what you want is the subtitled tapes of the original Hong Kong versions that some companies sell over here, in English subtitles, not dubbed, not cut. I get them from a mail-order catalog and from a little Asian grocery in Little Rock that rents movies in the back, when I can get somebody to drive down there with me. The lady at the counter knows me now. She saves things for me.

MOVIESTATUS
Police Story (1985), subtitledGOT IT
Armour of God (1986), subtitledGOT IT
Wheels on Meals (1984), subtitledGOT IT
Rumble, Supercop, First Strike, Condor, Mr. Nice Guy, Rush Hour (U.S. tapes)GOT 'EM
Drunken Master (1978), subtitledWANT
Project A (1983)WANT (seen Matt's cousin's copy)
Project A Part II (1987)WANT
Dragons Forever (1988), with Sammo Hung and Yuen BiaoWANT
Miracles (1989)WANT
Drunken Master II (1994)WANT BAD
Who Am I? (1998)WANT BAD
Gorgeous (1999), his new one over thereWANT

If you've got a subtitled copy of anything on the WANT list and you'd trade or sell it, e-mail me. I'll pay fair, and I'll throw in a free tire rotation if you're anywhere near central Arkansas. (Mr. Gregorio says I can't promise that. I'm promising it.)

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