In Hollywood, there are very few people who could be considered to be in the same echelon as Jackie Chan. A massive superstore all over the world, he has become so famous that Chan has gotten the chance to rub elbows with royalty over the years. More importantly, Chan has accumulated millions of devoted fans who show up to support any project he is a part of.
Since Jackie Chan is such an inspiring human being, it makes sense that most of the attention he receives is positive. However, nobody leads a perfect life so it makes sense that Chan has had to deal with some negative side effects of his career as well. Even with that in mind, it is still amazing to learn that Chan was once investigated by the police for reasons that directly relate to the fame he enjoys.
An Incredible Career
Throughout Jackie Chan’s decades in the spotlight, he has put together one of the most impressive careers in entertainment history. The star of a slew of movies that have brought in more than $2.5 billion at the worldwide box office according to the-numbers.com, Chan is a truly bankable star. As a result, the movie studios have been willing to pay the talented actor a fortune to star in their projects. In fact, Chan is worth $400 million according to celebritynetworth.com and Jackie even made $40 million during the pandemic, amazingly enough.
Initially made famous as a talented martial artist and action star who does his own stunts, Jackie Chan easily could have enjoyed a great deal of success by focusing on those skills alone. Instead, Chan decided to star in a slew of movies that focused more on his comedic skills in addition to showcasing a sampling of his fighting skills. For example, Chan showed off his comedy chops in movies like the Rush Hour and Drunken Masters series of films. On top of all that, Chan also had another career that a lot of his fans are unaware of, as a record producer. With all of that in mind, it makes sense that everything Chan does garners a lot of attention.
The Police Investigation
As anyone who has watched a Jackie Chan interview will no doubt be able to attest, the actor comes across as an incredibly likable fellow. When you factor that in with the fact that Chan offered up one million yuan of his own money to anyone who could find a cure for COVID-19, it is hard to imagine anyone wanting to attack Jackie. According to Chan, however, he once found himself in mortal danger.
While talking to the Chinese magazine Southern People Weekly, Jackie claimed that at one point in his career, Chan had the Triad gangs after him. An incredibly dangerous group, having the Triad gangs mad at you is the type of thing that anyone should fear. Of course, Jackie Chan has physical talents that few people can rival. Even still, Chan revealed that “in the past, when they bullied me, I hid in the United States”. Ultimately, Chan says that didn’t work as the Triads “opened fire at (him) once (he) got off the airplane”.
According to what Jackie Chan said next in the aforementioned Chinese magazine Southern People Weekly interview, things would ultimately come to a head after that. “When I returned to Hong Kong and ate outside, more than 20 people surrounded me with melon knives. I pulled out a gun, and had two more concealed. I told them they had been going too far. I confronted them with two guns and six grenades.”
Unfortunately for anyone who wants to hear more about his story, Jackie Chan didn’t elaborate on how his standoff with the gangs came to an end. As it turns out, however, Chan had already said more than enough to potentially get himself in a lot of trouble. The reason for that is that it is highly illegal to possess firearms without a license in Hong Kong.
Based on Chan’s story about the standoff he had with members of the Triad gangs, there were reasons to conclude that he’d broken the law. As a result, Hong Kong police opened an investigation into the actor and if they were able to prove he was guilty of having unlicensed firearms, he was facing 14 years behind bars. Chan would later go on to change a key detail of his story when he said that the standoff didn’t actually take place in Hong Kong. While there is no way to know if Chan’s change of story is what made the difference, the important thing is that Hong Kong police dropped their investigation into the supposed incident.
