Jackie Chan vs Jet Li vs Bruce Lee

[kungfuprincess7]

Which one do you think is the best martial artist and why?

Kung Fu Princess

[Southern Mantis]

Difficult one - but here are my observations from watching their films:

Bruce Lee - extremely fast - in an era where there were no (or not many) special effects when filming martial artists. Was an artist in the sense he thought a lot about the reasoning behind Kung Fu. Had a bit of an ego, but this didn't detract from his abilities. Died too young to get a real understanding of what he was capable of.

Jackie Chan - not sure about this. Seen some of his films - impressive, but not enough to make a sound judgement.

Jet Li - he is my absolute favourite. Always performs well in films, but in an era where there is a lot of wire work and so on, it is hard to tell. Similar to Bruce he embraces the rationale behind the art which perhaps completes a person as an artist (not sure). He has made a lot more films than bruce so we have a lot more on which to judge his abilities.

Mind you, having said all of this, there are some other excellent artists in the movies - what about Donnie Yen in Iron Monkey (although it seemd to have been speeded up in places).

By the way - Jet is also etemely good looking - helps a lot when watching him fight

[kungfuprincess7]

yea you got to see some of Jackies past movies, he is great a a lot of styles... i get some of his drunken katas for tournies.. the old ones are better than his comidies nowadays :) in my opinion....

Ku Fu Princess

[Southern Mantis]

That is the problem - I've only seen his modern ones like Rush Hour 1 and 2. Although he is clearly proficient in his art, I have seen adverts for his old ones and he looks amazing - got to see them.

[kungfuprincess7]

yea if you like styles mantis you will like his old movies.... he does snake crane drunken tiger.. and not drunken master two no no the original yes is slower movin but better shows the great style of drunken boxin... just umm watch out cus jackies old movies are so sloww sometimes hahah and weird filmin.

Kung Fu Princess

[Infesticon #1]

I thought drunken master was cool when I watched it, it also has Hwang Jang Lee in it, who I like because he's a TKD guy.

I think Jet Li is the best Martial artist out of those, he was after all a child prodigy.

Though having said that, it's probably because I watched a Kung Fu documentary recently that he starred in (for about 5 minutes) and some of the people in that doc. were absolutely amazing. not many were in movies though, they were all various champions of different styles of kung fu in China.

My fave was a 100 year old man who was doing stuff with a broadsword, it looked like it didn't take any effort to move it, and the guy was 100. Unbelievable.

[KenpoDavid]

Siu-hou Chin is awsome! His moves look great on film and he is a good actor too. I hope he gets more movies, IMDB doesn't credit him anything since 1999. You might recognize him from Twin Warriors and Fist of Legend both with Jet Li.

but to answer the topic of the thread, Bruce is a Classic, Jackie is all Fun, and Jet is "The Best" ---- "Chen Zhen, from Ching Wu" "That's right, the best". That cartwheel handstand kick to the neck in Fist of Legend is amazing (no wires!)

Wires have ruined martial arts films!

[David]

Ooh! Jet Li can do a handstand without wires shock! Hasn't he come a long way! ;) Jackie Chan did cartwheels on his head.

Filmwise, JC is my man all the way because he isn't up his own ass and don't forget he did loads of stunts for Bruce Lee.

IRL, I don't know if any of them are martial artists. JC trained MA for performance. BL trained MA for MA and then performance. JL trained MA for MA and as performance and now does it for performance, ruining his technique with wires.

Rgds,
David

[KenpoDavid]

well, you must not have seen the movie, its more than a handstand. Chin sweeps his leg, Jet jumps at the last second, cartwheels over and kicks Chin in the neck while on his hands, then jumps back and lands on his feet.

What I would like to see most is a film with Jackie and jet together! With Billy Chow and Siu-hou Chin as bad guys. And Ziyi Zhang, becasue she is soooooo sexy and a good MA too!

[Cain]

For acrobatics etc I like Yuen Biao rather than Jet Li.

Of the three I choose Bruce Lee because no one matches his charisma on the screen yet, also he'd like both Jet and Jackie's a$$ :D

|Cain|

[kungfuprincess7]

Which guy do you think will win if they fought against eachother?

Kung Fu Princess

[imawimp]

Jackie Chan has to be my favorite, Jet Li is good but in order to compare you need to look at Jackies older stuff.

Rumble in the Bronx has some incredible stuff in it, only magnified by the fact that Jackie is doing his own stunts.

His more recent stuff, shanghai knights etc etc doesnt stack up as well, but lets see how Jet Li does in 20 yrs before we decide. :)

I have to admit I also like Jackie Chans self effacing style in the movies. I cant imagine Jet Li's movie persona building an entire fight scene out of accidently tripping over a chair.

[Ein]

Personaly I think Jet Li owns them.

[redi knight]

id say bruce was about the best, he changed so much, didnt limit himself to one style, defied tradition, and trained constantly..fanaticlly almost. he himself said ' i donot consider myself #1, but im not #2nd to anbody either' not an exact quote but still cool.

jackie chan is pretty good too, he was bruce's stunt double before. i cant say whod win in a fight between him and bruce.

jet li might be alright, but all his movies are phoney, people jumpin 20ft, defying gravity, and all this stupid stuff, never get a chance to see what he can really do. i think hes arrogant, bruce was too, but he could back it up at least.

jackie chan does all his own stunts,he doesnt do stuff that is humanly impossible, just things that are ...impressive, youll notice hes abit of a acrobat. he was put in a chinese opera school when he was very young, and they teach you kung-fu and acrobatics there, so that gives him about 40 years of experience...

[xan]

i think bruce would most definantly win
have you guys seen his one inch punch????
he punched a guy that was covered with pads from one inch away... and the dude went flying into the audience!!!!... there was no special affects either
after him i would think jackie.. they say that jet lee is the current fastest fighter... but jackie is now 40 years old and hes still up there... how do you think he was when he was young????

[xan]

di u read his auto-biofraphy????
jackie i mean

[RubyMoon]

Jackie's my favorite, and we already know he can take extreme amounts of punishment. I doubt either Bruce or Jet Li could have survived all the stunts Jackie Chan has pulled off in his career. He is also intensely creative in his work and his quick wit suggests an agile mind. He's got my vote.

[RubyMoon]

Originally posted by xan
have you guys seen his one inch punch????

A one-inch punch is great, but what if I'm farther away than that? ;)

If I thought Bruce wanted to punch me, I would be very far away...like on the other side of town!

[Disciple]

Bruce Lee.
I love Jet Li and Jackie Chan, but I have to stay with Bruce. He was the best physical and athletic specimen of all three, the strongest, and I feel the most passionate and philosophical.

about Jackie Chan and Bruce lee: Who said Jackie did a bunch of stuntwork for Bruce? and where di you get that? Chan was still in the operahouse when bruce was doing movies. Bruce Lee died ( :( ) in 1973... Jackie Chan is only 40 somehting if that much.

Ruby Moon: Chan took some damage in his stunt careers, but Bruce survived a borken back, literally, early in his career. Also, He used to fight whne he was a younin.

[xplasma]

Remember Jackie Chan isn't a martial arts prationers like Jet Li and Bruce Lee. Jackie Chan is a product of Peking Opera who train in flashy entertainment MA type moves. What they train is closer to Ballet. Jackie Chan is an entertainer and a good one. Jet Li and Bruce Lee were Martial Artists who sorta fell into acting.

[Shyguy]

All three of them are good in their own ways.
For martial arts it is cleraly Bruce Lee, for he studied and learned the most amount of martial arts.
Jet Li & Jackie Chan are the better film stars and it really depends on what you are after to see who you like more. For a movie based on what reality has given us then look Jackie Chan, but if you lke thing more out of the super natural then face Jet Li.
As for the question on who would win if they had a big free for all fight, then i would say Bruce Lee.

My favourite of the three is Jackie as he is very good at converting everyday objects into a variety of fighting tools.

It would be reall great if Jackie and Jet made a film togther, but that would never happen as they are actually arch rivals and hate each other a lot.

[Chris.B]

I think the best one out of the three is Jet. He moves the fastest, I saw him doing a clip and I swear it looked like the fast fowarded it. You'll see an impresive clip of his speen if you get the special edition DVD of The One go and the extras and you'll see how fast he is. They took out that part in the normal movie becuase people laghed and thought they just fast fowarded the movments of Jet when it was really all him. He is a crazy martial art fighter, not only a good actor. So rent the one special edition look at the extra part in the extras on the DVD then tell me whos the fastest.

[RubyMoon]

Originally posted by xplasma
Remember Jackie Chan isn't a martial arts prationers like Jet Li and Bruce Lee. Jackie Chan is a product of Peking Opera who train in flashy entertainment MA type moves. What they train is closer to Ballet. Jackie Chan is an entertainer and a good one. Jet Li and Bruce Lee were Martial Artists who sorta fell into acting. That's not entirely accurate. Jackie learned a multitude of traditional martial arts while in the Peking Opera School, including wing chun and many others. His childhood there was brutal. They were forced to train 18 hours a day, and beatings were commonplace. He was basically sold to the school, where they could literally beat a child to death legally.

When Jackie got out of the Peking Opera School, he had a rocky adjustment to the "real world." He had frequent run-ins with members of the infamous gang, the Triads, who had tried to recruit him. In one such instance, Jackie and two of his friends beat six bikers.

Early in Jackie's film career, he tried to imitate Bruce Lee. The style didn't suit Jackie and the films flopped. Even Jackie observed that "nobody can replace Bruce Lee." That didn't stop him, however. Jackie developed his own cinematic style which really came to life in his first major success, the Drunken Master.

If you really watch and compare their techniques, you might actually see more "real" martial arts in Jackie's films than in Bruce's. Bruce, himself, admitted that much of what he did on film was just for show. The same can be said of Jackie, naturally, but if you watch closely you will notice an interesting contrast.

I am a great fan of Bruce Lee, but I think Jackie has outperformed him in most respects. Maybe this would not be true if Bruce were alive today. But to say that Jackie Chan is not a real martial artist is just crazy. He is as real as they come.

The jury is still out on Jet Li. He is clearly an excellent martial artist, but I've seen a lot more wire work from him and much less that makes my jaw drop and say, "Wow!" By contrast, when I watch Jackie on the screen I often find myself breaking out in laughter from the pure exhilaration of knowing he really DID that stuff.

[bcullen]

Really tough call on this one.

Here's a little food for thought though:

In Enter the Dragon during the fight scene between Bob Wall (Oharra) and Bruce Lee there is a sequence where Bruce side-kicks Bob into a group of onlookers. As the story goes: Bob and Bruce were not on the best of terms and before shooting this scene Bob had bragged that he could take anything Bruce could dish out. That kick was real and broke the arm of one of the extras Bob fell into.

[Greg-VT]

Bob and Bruce were on good terms.

That rumour started when Bob accidently striked Bruce with a broken bottle on the hand (the same scene your talking about). Bruce was was supposed to move the bottle with his hand before kicking Wall. Only his Hand it the bottle, not Bob's arm.

It was purly an accident, and they remain friends after the incident.

[Tireces]

Not another one of these!

[Greg-VT]

It was over Tireces.

No one had replied FOR OVER 8 HOURS. It - was - over.



You just brought it back.... to complain about it?

[shipto]

Steven seagal cos most of the stuff he does will work.

[Cain]

Originally posted by xplasma
Remember Jackie Chan isn't a martial arts prationers like Jet Li and Bruce Lee. Jackie Chan is a product of Peking Opera who train in flashy entertainment MA type moves. What they train is closer to Ballet. Jackie Chan is an entertainer and a good one. Jet Li and Bruce Lee were Martial Artists who sorta fell into acting.

Not true, from what I recall Jackie, Jet and Yuen Biao all were in the opera school.

about Jackie Chan and Bruce lee: Who said Jackie did a bunch of stuntwork for Bruce? and where di you get that? Chan was still in the operahouse when bruce was doing movies. Bruce Lee died ( ) in 1973... Jackie Chan is only 40 somehting if that much.

Jackie did plenty of stunt work in Bruce's movies, in fist of fury aka chinese connection, in the end where the japanese guy flies out the building at about 10 feet was none other than jackie himself, that fall was a record one.

|Cain|

[Who am I?]

I think Bruce is the best, but right now I like Jet LI, has anyone seen cradle 2 the grave, when he fights againts all those fighters

[Matt_Bernius]

Ok, couple things:

1. As a few other have said it's well documented that Jackie was already doing stunt work under Sammo Hung when Bruce came to Hong Kong. Jackie worked on two of Bruce's films:
- Chinese Connection/Fists of Fury
- Enter the Dragon
But Jackie never doubled for Bruce. However, as Cain said Jackie did take the fall for the General at the end of Fists. It was said at the time that it was the furthest/highest fall a HK stuntman had taken. This fall was one of the things that first helped get Jackie noticed. However he and Bruce did not have any formal relationship. This is all documented in "I am Jackie Chan" amoung other places.

2. At least is US productions Jackie no longer does all of this own stunts. He didn't do all of them in Shanghi Noon (this is why they cut away for a few shots). I'm not sure if this is due to age or insurance reasons. Either way I don't begrudge the guy anything as far as stunts go. He's earned a double ten times over.

As to who is best? It's all personal opinion. Bruce and Jackie did more to revolutionize Kung Fu films than Jet did. Bruce and Jet worked to build philosophy into their films. Jackie pushed stunts into an entirely new world. Personally I'm pretty psyched that we have all three of them!

- Matt

[TigerAnsTKDLove]

bruce lee all the way he will always be my favorite :)

[TigerAnsTKDLove]

jet li is kick butt awesome too

[Topher]

Originally posted by RubyMoon
Jackie developed his own cinematic style which really came to life in his first major success, the Drunken Master.


His first major success was Snake In Eagles Shadow. One of his best along with Drunken Master.
______

I think Jackie Chan films have more realism than Bruce’s. Bruce could punch a hole in a brick wall and in it wont hurt, Jackie tries it…ouch!. Bruce could fight 10 people, Jackie would just run away. Jackie could loose a fight convincingly, whereas Bruce would always have the look of “I could have beaten you if I really wanted to’

Over all I pick Jackie, especially his old films. Bruce though, is still top class.

[Who am I?]

Come on, it's Bruce Lee.

[Guy Mendiola]

Of course it has to be the one and only, Bruce Lee and Jet Li is another good fighter also. :)

[stratiotes]

I liked bruce lee's fighting style, didn't care for his movies. Same with jet Li.

I've always loved jackie chan's movies. In his older ones, i found myself rewinding alot and saying "How in the hell". His new ones are great just because they are funny (with the exception of The Tuxedo and The Medalian). "Who am I" had several great fight scenes, as well as "rumble in the bronx". In JC's films he was a good fighter, but never played a "One man army" such as actors like Chuck Norris. In each fight, he never was invincible, so he made it more believable.

[Mordred]

Bruce Lee, then Jackie Chan. I don't care much for Jet Li.

Jackie has done so much of his own stunts, who cares if he doesn't do all of his own stunts anymore? His previous stuff was amazing.

[stratiotes]

I imagine Jackie Chan has also probably broken the most bones out of the three. Have to give him some credit for that!

[tonymok125]

I think that all three are good in their own ways.

For example, BL was very philisophical about his way and the guy trained constantly!! Plus he trained to be a MA, then progressed to films. Although, he wanted to be famous at what he did, which he did!

JC trained at the Chinese Opera, but this doesn't rule him out to be a MA. In fact, the guy has probably broken more bones than BL & JL combined!! But I like JC's style, it makes cry with laughter!

JL was like BL, he trained to become a MA. But I guess JL is still the newcomer out of the three. So we have to see how he progresses in another 10 years!

But I like all three. But you ask who would win in a fight? I reckon Bruce Lee! :D

[Topher]

One thing i like is that JC can loose a fight convinsenly, the back ally scene in Rumble In The Bronx being one of may examples. Bruce always has that look of 'well, i can beat you if i tried'