#10 – Young Master

One of the last traditional Hong Kong martial arts films, The Young Master is a weird meandering tale that occasionally forgets that films are generally supposed to have plots. Essentially, Jackie leaves his martial arts school to clear the name of his wayward brother. In the meantime he makes frenemies with a lawkeeper, gets accused of sexual assault, and learns how to fight like a badass while wearing a skirt. The final fight lasts 25 minutes and is essentially Jackie just getting pummelled by an evil master over and over again – that is until Jackie accidentally drinks a bowl of opium water, which.. well… it really must be seen to be believed:

#9 – Supercop: Police Story 3

No one is going to accuse Supercop of having terribly good writing, or performances, and actually the lighting was pretty poor, and I’m pretty sure the sound editor got his 4-year-old child to do most of the work for him, but Supercop is ridiculously entertaining. The highlight of the film is the big Jackie Chan stunt: hanging off a helicopter’s rope ladder as it flies above Kuala Lumpur. No safety wire, just fear and massive, massive balls. What a guy.

#8 – Rush Hour

Jackie teams up with street-wise Chris Tucker and, well, they kick ass. Rush Hour is a combination of brilliant action, hilarious comedy and genuinely-touching buddy-cop shenanigans, and it’s set apart from most of the other Hollywood Jackie Chan adventures (misadventures) by the fact that it’s great. Don’t believe me? Twin Dragons, anyone? The Accidental Spy? What about The Tuxedo, surely that was a masterpiece?

#7 – Who Am I?

If you had suggested that Jackie Chan getting amnesia would produce one of the finest action films ever made before I saw Who Am I? for the first time, I would’ve had you sectioned. After secret agent Jackie Chan falls from a helicopter (a different one than Supercop), everybody is just trying to murder the shit out of Jackie and he has no idea why. Cue fantastic fights and superb stunts, including the amazing spinning-bungee-jump and a high-speed run down an angled glass ceiling on a skyscraper – 21 stories.

Not to mention the bit where Jackie Chan looks to the sky and screams “WHO AM I!?”

#6 – Police Story

The legendary Police Story firmly cemented Jackie Chan’s reputation in Hong Kong cinema when it came out in 1985. It was a sensation in his home country, almost as if Jackie Chan was Edward Cullen in a sentence that will almost certainly never be written again. Inspector Chan Ka Kui is just too nice a cop. After he gets framed for killing another police officer, he begins to kick all the ass. This film features the amazing stunt where Jackie Chan hangs off a moving bus with an umbrella. Fortune Star Media have helpfully suppressed all the clips of this on YouTube, so here’s Jackie talking about it instead:

#5 – Rush Hour 2

This is probably something of a guilty pleasure. Yes it’s a rehash of the first Rush Hour, yes it’s sexist, yes it’s racist, but it’s just so damn funny! Jackie and Chris Tucker’s rapport hits an all-time high (Rush Hour 3 doesn’t even come close) and the choreographed fights blend with humour like nothing else. A great film.

#4 – Police Story 2

Another amazing sequel, the makers of Police Story did not rest on their laurels for the sequel. Deciding that he had to ramp everything up from the last film, Police Story 2 features one of the craziest stunts ever film: after an amazing fight scene in a mall, Jackie slides down a 100ft pole through live electrical cables and real glass. He almost died for our pleasure, but what pleasure that is.

#3 – Legend Of The Drunken Master

Yet ANOTHER amazing sequel! A full 16 years after the first Drunken Master, this was Jackie’s first return to a small-scale Chinese production, but it was worth the wait. The fights are almost too amazing to believe, the last of which features Jackie’s own bodyguard kicking our poor hero onto burning coals.

Oh yeah, once again Jackie resorts to getting hammered beyond all belief to win the final fight. On industrial spirits.

#2 – Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow

The film that brought Jackie Chan out of the shadows of being Bruce Lee’s stunt double, Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow is real old-school martial arts. Jackie is a complete doofus floor-scrubber in a martial arts school, until he saves a dirty old man. Turns out this filthy sipholtic begger is the kung fu master of the Snake style, on the run from the evil Eagle’s Claw clan and one not-very-christian priest. To defeat the head of the Eagle clan, Jackie creates his own form after watching his cat murder a snake, and we get Jackie yowling like a cat and scratching the bad guys. Such a good film.

Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow has one of the best training montages of all time. Take a look:

#1 – Drunken Master

The greatest Jackie Chan film ever made. In fact, the greatest martial arts film ever made (suck it, Bruce Lee’s ghost!). In the follow up to Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow, Drunken Master features almost every single actor that featured in the previous film, still looking the same, but with completely different characters. Jackie is now a spoilt son of a great martial artist who is forced to submit to the harsh training of the great Drunken Master himself. Jackie learns that getting completely off your face on alcohol makes you a killing machine, and proceeds to steal alcohol en masse to feed his and his master’s addiction.

The final fight of Jackie just getting more and more inebriated and moving through the fists of the eight drunken gods, the strongest of which appears to be the drunken lady Miss Ho, is just too damn funny and too damn exciting. An unbelievably good film. Go watch! Go go!

What’s your favourite Jackie Chan film? Let us know below!