Hong Kong Kung-fu Stars Can't Be Stopped

Why Hong Kong kung-fu fighters Jackie Chan and Jet Li have outlasted a generation of Hollywood action stars

Chan Kam Chuen / Lionsgate

The Forbidden Kingdom

"We can kill each other when it's over," says Jackie Chan as the Drunken Master Lu Yan to Jet Li's Silent Monk in the new Asian-American fantasy film The Forbidden Kingdom. But when these honored veterans of Hong Kong martial-arts movies get into fighting mode, it's an open question as to whether they'll survive till the end of the shoot. (Chan ends each of his films with gruesome outtakes of the injuries he suffered doing his stunts.) For all the safety precautions taken, the two stars still have to give every fiber of their disciplined, battered bodies to get through the...

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