One of the most perilous situations Jackie Chan has ever been involved in had absolutely nothing to do with any kind of stunt. Rather, it placed the legendary martial arts star in the crosshairs of a leopard. The encounters that Jackie Chan had with the animal occurred during the filming of Hong Kong action comedy Armour of God.
Of course, Jackie Chan has a well-documented history of life-threatening predicaments in his movies. The vast majority of those, however, relate to his athletic abilities. Over the years, Jackie Chan has pulled off dozens of stunts that came with the risk of serious injury, and in some cases, death. In fact, many did indeed go badly, leaving the actor with broken bones or putting him in the hospital. But not all the danger that Jackie Cha has faced entailed a high fall, jumping through a window, or anything else that was a test of his physical capabilities. For Chan, the leopard in Armour of God was a completely different kind of problem.
Jackie Chan Had A Close Call With A Leopard While Making Armour Of God
Jackie Chan Scared A Leopard By Accident
In 1986, Jackie Chan starred in Armour of God, a movie that propelled the actor’s character on a treasure-seeking adventure akin to those seen in the Indiana Jones franchise. Like those films, Armour of God had an exotic setting, which paved the way for the inclusion of a leopard. According to Jackie Chan’s autobiography, Never Grow Up, the animal seemed “docile” initially and obeyed its trainer’s instructions. However, it didn’t move exactly when it was supposed to during filming. When it finally did what was expected of it, Jackie Chan unintentionally frightened the leopard by letting out an excited yell.
The leopard lunged at Chan, who claimed he almost lost a finger to the animal, but he jumped backwards in the nick of time. Since the trainer had the leopard on a chain, the cat was restrained before it could renew its attack. Recalling the incident, Chan wrote, “it was terrifying!“
making everything look real has always been one of the guiding principles that defines what the actor views as “a Jackie Chan movie.”
Unfortunately for Chan, this was not the end of his difficulties with sharing the set with the leopard. The incident made the scene they wanted to do “impossible,” so they added the leopard to a different scene, which called for Chan to walk past it. But with each take, the leopard would attempt a “vicious attack” on Chan, once even leaving claw marks on a wall. As Chan claimed in the book, all of this helped him understand the consequences of scaring an animal.
Jackie Chan’s Leopard Experience Reflects What Makes His Movies So Special
Jackie Chan Does Everything He Can To Make His Films Feel Authentic To The Audience
The type of danger Jackie Chan found himself with the leopard in Armour of God differs considerably from his usual problems, but can still be chalked up to the formula that’s inherent to his body of work. Doing his own stunts is a hallmark of his films, but it’s actually just one of six guiding principles that make up what the actor views as “a Jackie Chan movie.” As Chan explains in Never Grow Up, he considers it important that his movies showcase exotic locales. Armour of God’s attempt to include a leopard would have lent itself well to that approach.
There’s also the matter of the realism factor at play here. For the most part, that’s achieved through Jackie Chan’s insistence on doing his own stunts. But as the situation with the leopard makes clear, Chan’s commitment to this cause goes much deeper than that. It’s always been important to Chan that everything that happens onscreen in his movies has a feeling of authenticity to it, whether that calls for him to fall out of a window or actually get dangerously close to a ᴅᴇᴀᴅly animal.
