International Jackie Chan Action Movie Week

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'Dangal' girl Sanya Malhotra not just met with Jackie Chan, but also got an award in China

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Sanya Malhotra and Jackie Chan , Image Courtesy: Instagram

WRITTEN BY DNA Web Team
Updated: Jul 25, 2018, 10:21 PM IST

Sanya Malhotra has been felicitated in China. The actress had visited the country to pick an award for her performance in her debut film 'Dangal'. Recently Sanya Malhotra had attended the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) in China along with her Dangal co-star Fatima Sana Shaikh.

Sanya won the Best Action Actress Award at the prestigious fourth annual Jackie Chan Action Movie Week, held as part of SIFF, for her performance in Dangal. The award ceremony was held in Datong, China. Sanya, who made it to the event, even had a fan-girl moment when she met action superstar Jackie Chan.

Sanya Malhotra shared,"I’m humbled to have received this award for the movie. Dangal means a lot to me and marked my debut in the industry. I feel grateful for the honor from a lovely country like China. It only encourages me to work harder for all the people who have showered so much love on me since the movie released. Also, the cherry on the icing was meeting the legendary actor Jackie Chan. It was truly a fangirl moment for me. He is very humble, gracious and down-to-earth.”

Both Sanya and Fatima even posed with the star for a picture and shared it on their respective social media accounts. Sanya shared an image of her with Jackie Chan and captioned it by writing,"Met a legend who’s so humble, gracious and hospitable. Thank you so much @jackiechan for having us at #jackiechanactionmovieweek . Looking forward to watch the closing ceremony and especially the performance by your team ️#jackiechan#dangal".

In fact, Sanya is a big fan of Chan’s work and has seen most of his action movies while growing up. Her film Dangal released in China and received a humongous response from the Chinese audience, and Sanya left the audience and critics impressed with her performance as Babita.

Dangal had become the biggest film of the year when it was released in India in 2016. It was not only hailed in India by the audience and critics, but was also loved in other countries.

Dangal has been declared one of the most popular Indian films to have been released in China. Dangal actresses Sanya Malhotra and Fatima Sana Shaikh were honoured with the Best Action Actress Award for Dangal.

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THREADS:
Dangal
Jackie Chan's franchises

I'm launching a new thread for International Jackie Chan Action Movie Week, and copying the comment above from our Jackie Chan's franchises because this event has become quite a thing and will hopefully continue for years to come.

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Jackie Chan closes film fest with stunts
2018-07-26 09:22:41 China DailyEditor : Mo Hong'e ECNS

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Jackie Chan waves to fans at the closing ceremony of fourth annual International Jackie Chan Action Movie Week. (Photo: China Daily/Feng Yongbin)

Jackie Chan's annual film festival recently concluded in Datong with a Chinese action hit topping the awards.

Top Chinese actor Jackie Chan, who has performed perilous scenes in more than 200 films over the past four decades, entertained his guests with stunts at a recent film event he has founded.

At the closing ceremony of the International Jackie Chan Action Movie Week held in Datong, Shanxi province, on Sunday, the 64-year-old superstar used a rope to alight from a helicopter that was hovering around 70 meters above the ground, thrilling his audience. The annual festival, in its fourth edition this year, was held in Shanghai for the past three years.

This year's event screened a dozen action blockbusters and honored industry talent.

For Chan, who ranked 59th on US magazine Forbes' 2018 highest-paid celebrity list, the festival is a recognition of stunt performers in the movie business. Chan, who's also a martial arts expert, began his film career as a stuntman in Hong Kong in the early 1970s. He wasn't paid much at the start, but the action scenes that included a lot of jumping, rolling and falling were risky.

"I was once slammed down hard against a cement floor, six times in a week. Every day I clenched my teeth to stand up. I was paid just HK$5 ($0.64) a day," Chan told his audience in Datong.

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Chan recalls his early years of struggle as a stuntman during a forum in Datong. (Photo: China Daily/Feng Yongbin)

Chan has had a successful career, from the golden era of Hong Kong martial arts films to his foray into Hollywood and through more recent years when he switched to the Chinese mainland market. But most others in the field have not achieved similar success. The work of stunt performers and action stand-ins is undervalued, he says.

With the festival, Chan is using his star power to bring more attention to such actors and actresses.

"It's (the festival) still young, but I hope it will enjoy a popularity similar to some top events such as the Hong Kong Film Awards in the future," he told reporters on the sidelines of the action movie week in Datong.

Chan has an event to raise public awareness about environmental protection and at least seven new films on his busy schedule. "I don't dare to sleep. I have so many things to do."

Aside from an expansion in scale and size, the festival he founded has gathered more celebrities. Presided over by Hong Kong filmmaker Ng See-Yuen, the seven-member jury includes Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh, Chinese mainland director Lu Chuan, actor Huang Xiaoming and actress Bai Baihe.

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Operation Red Sea's actress Jiang Luxia (second left) and Dangal's actress Fatima Sana Shaikh (center) jointly win the best action actress award at the movie event. (Photo: China Daily/Feng Yongbin)

Operation Red Sea, an action-packed blockbuster based on the Chinese navy's real evacuation of more than 800 people from Yemen during a civil war in 2015, was the top winner in Datong, with awards for the best picture, stunts and actress.

The award for the best actor was given jointly to Wu Jing and Duan Yihong for the crime thriller Explosion. Wu also got the best action director award for Wolf Warriors II.

The best actress award was also given jointly to Jiang Luxia for Operation Red Sea and Indian actress Fatima Sana Shaikh for the Hindi film Dangal, based on the real-life story of a wrestler and his daughters, which was a hit in China.

During the festival week, Chan visited some underdeveloped areas in rural Datong to promote local products. He says he was among an early group of top celebrities to launch a campaign targeting poverty alleviation. The Chinese government is aiming to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020.

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Chan with stunt performers at the movie week. (PHOTO BY FENG YONGBIN/CHINA DAILY)

The festival saw many industry insiders, film scholars and critics discuss the future of Chinese action movies, which are among the most popular Chinese cultural exports in the modern world.

"Action is one of the most influential genres in the history of Chinese cinema. Superstars such as Bruce Lee and Chan have made 'kung fu' a buzzword across the world," says Li Wei, president of 1905.com, the site of China Central Television's movie channel and a major sponsor of the film festival.

The highest-grossing Chinese films in North America are still martial arts titles, such as Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and Fearless(2006), starring Jet Li.

Still, the genre has struggled in recent years and needs better storytelling for today's audience, says Yin Hong, a professor of Tsinghua University.

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Also copying this to our Operation Red Sea thread.

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HOME FILM ASIA JULY 30, 2019 6:26AM PT
Jackie Chan Reignites Action Film Week in China
By PATRICK FRATER
Asia Bureau Chief

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CREDIT: PATRICK FRATER

Chris Tucker, Adrien Brody and Paul Haggis were on hand Saturday to give a huge high-tech finale to the fifth edition of the Jackie Chan Action Film Week. So too were Crystal Liu Yifei, star of Disney’s upcoming “Mulan,” and a bevy of top Chinese talent.

Moving the event from the fringes of the Shanghai festival in June, to a new date and spectacular outdoor venues provided by provincial town of Datong, some 200 miles East of Beijing in Shanxi Province, may have revitalized the Action Film Week. The event ran for three years in Shanghai, before relocating last year to Datong. Upbeat organizers now talk of franchising the event to other countries.

After opening on July 21 and a week of fan interaction, the festival put on a closing ceremony that was a razzamatazz of stunts, choreography and pyrotechnics. The scale suggested ambitions of matching an Olympic Games or World Cup ceremony.

Held in a full-sized sports arena, with perhaps 20,000 spectators, the show opened with a troop of astronauts arriving from the skies, and Chan himself making an aerial entry in a fire-spitting space car. Another performer topped even that, entering and leaving in a single seater passenger drone.

There were musical interludes from Taiwan’s Emil Chan Wakin, mainland Chinese songstress Jane Zhang. Superstar, Wang Lee Hom interrupted a nationwide tour to perform a hip hop number. And the whole thing was wrapped up for telecast by state television giant CCTV.

That is all a far cry from the two or three downbeat years that followed the mini festival’s well-intended, but somewhat directionless, start in 2015.

Datong not only financed the event, and loaned its sports complex, but also provided its historically significant caves as an appropriately larger than life backdrop. In its Yungang grottoes, giant Buddha heads carved into the limestone and spectacularly lit up in the early evening overlooked a series of seminars with topics including: the nature of action films; cross-border action film co-operation; and the influence of changing technology on stunt workers.

For these, Chan pulled together top-flight directors Tsui Hark, Wu Jing (“Wolf Warriors”), Martin Campbell (Jackie Chan-starring “The Foreigner”), and Sergei Bodrov (“Mongol”) and Praychy Pinkaew (“Ong-Bak”). Studio heads and officials included China Film Group’s La Peikang, Shanghai Film Group’s Ren Zhonglun, Huayi’s James Wang and Bona Film’s Yu Dong. Top stuntmen included Buddy Joe Hooker, Mark Sieger, He Jun and Hong Kong’s Chin Ka-lok.

Earlier in the week, some 150 films unspooled in Datong multiplexes, with a selection playing in competition section. Honors were shared, with India’s “Junglee,” China’s “The Big Shot,” and Hong Kong’s “Project Gutenberg” each claiming two prizes. Veteran action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” “The Matrix”) received a lifetime achievement award.

The recipients could scarcely have had a bigger stage to collect their statuettes. Also present at the prize-giving closing event were Japanese actor Yasuaki Kurata, directors Stanley Tong, Tsui Siuming, Frant Guo (“The Wandering Earth”), Chinese actor Chen Daoming, Hong Kong’s Kara Wai, and visiting foreign actresses Jeeja Yanin, Aleksandra Revenko and Loan Chabanon (“The Transporter Refuelled”).


Prizes Awarded at the 2019 Jackie Chan Action Film Week
Best action film: “The Big Shot” (China)
Director: He Quan for “Shadows and Echoes” (China)
Special jury prize: for best action family film “Junglee” (India)
Special jury prize: for best ensemble cast “T34” (Russia)
Editing: “T-34” (Russia)
Stunt design: “Junglee” (India)
Cinematography: Jason Kwan for “Project Gutenberg” (Hong Kong)
Art design: Eric Lam for “Project Gutenberg” (Hong Kong)
Script: Wu Zhe for “Shadows and Echoes” (China)
Actress: Fatima Sana Shaikh in “Thugs of Hindostan” (India)

Actor: Wang Qianyuan in “The Big Shot” (China)

Lifetime achievement: Yuen Woo ping (Hong Kong).

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Been seeing pix in a lot of the grams I follow.

And Jackie's back!

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6th Jackie Chan International Action Film Week to kick off in August
By Chen Xi
Published: Jul 19, 2021 06:28 PM
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Promotional material of the 6th Jackie Chan International Action Film Week Photo: China News

The 6th Jackie Chan International Action Film Week will be held in North China's Shanxi Province on August 6-8 and a new selection of global classic action movies called "Top Ten Classic Actions" will be revealed at the event, it was announced on Monday. While the news sparked excitement in the star's fans, some Chinese film observers were dourer, saying that the golden age of Chinese action films have passed and need a reform in order to better fit in with today's mainstream tastes.

Jointly initiated by action star Jackie Chan and the Shanghai International Film Festival Organizing Committee, the film week aims to commend filmmakers who have made outstanding contributions to action movies and focus on cultivating and supporting new Chinese action elites.

"In order to make a film, the pain in my body is uncountable, but these efforts are worth it. Each classic scene not only stems from our love for action movies, but also our self-exploration, respect for life and honor toward the nation," Chan talked about his experiences filming the 1997 action movie Who Am I at a press conference on Thursday.

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Jackie Chan is invited to sing a song on a Chinese web celebrity's wedding. Photo: VCG

However, Chinese film observers warned that Chinese martial arts films are on the "decline."

"Audiences are always yearning for a martial arts world; but if martial arts stars cannot create a character that echoes the spirit of the times and action movies cannot tell a resonant story, this will result in the inevitable decline of the genre," Shi Wenxue, a film critic based in Beijing, told the Global Times on Monday.

He pointed out that the martial arts spirit and national righteousness conveyed by traditional kung fu movies is different from the current patriotic spirit in today's films. "Chinese moviegoers are no longer keen on the tolerance and forbearance in the traditional spirit of martial arts, but more greatly admire Wu Jing's high-key performance in Wolf Warrior 2."

"The emergence of super kung fu stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li was contributed to the prosperous age of Hong Kong films in the 1980s and 1990s, when kung fu or action films were some of the most characteristic films in the region. However, with the decline of Hong Kong film, it is hard to produce such brilliant kung fu stars," Xiao Fuqiu, a film critic based in Shanghai, told the Global Times on Monday.

"Martial arts superstars like Jackie Chan are rare actors who have both traditional martial arts [kung fu] skills and are well-versed in acting. However, in the current Chinese film market, it is difficult to find actors who can do both," he added.

But both experts denied that special effects could completely replace real-life fight scenes even as the actions in animated movies are mostly based onthe technology to capture real-life fights as "humans are always the core of an action film."

"Special effects can make action scenes more of a spectacle, and the fusion of real people and technology will create more actions that cannot be completed by real people," said Shi.

According to a report from China News, the "Top Ten Classic Actions" section will focus on classic global action movies and be picked through extensive selection by audience members, experts, as well as the judges. The results of the selection will be announced at the closing ceremony on August 8, and will also be included in the collection at the China Film Museum.

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