One of the two greatest martial arts icons of all time went up against the genre’s very first star – not once, but twice – on the big screen. Over the course of Jackie Chan’s long career, he’s appeared alongside a long list of fellow stars in the industry.

He teamed up with Michelle Yeoh before she became famous in Police Story 3: Supercop, co-starred in The Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li, and had a bit role as a minion in Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon.

Some of these movies – like The Forbidden Kingdom – are remembered primarily for their high-profile partnerships. And yet, despite appearing in three movies together, it’s often overlooked that Jackie Chan and the martial arts genre’s original star have fought each other twice in their films.

Jackie Chan Was The Villain Of Jimmy Wang Yu’s The Killer Meteors

In the mid-1970s, Jackie Chan’s movie career was just getting started. He appeared in multiple movies during this period, but had yet to become a true star, which didn’t happen until 1978 when he starred in Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and the now-iconic Drunken Master.

Up until then, he made a slew of conventional, old-school kung fu movies, most of which were admittedly forgettable. One of them was The Killing Meteors, a movie where Jackie Chan held a rare role as the villain that the hero has to defeat at the end of the film.

The movie was a vehicle for Jimmy Wang Yu, who, at the time, was a much bigger name in the industry than Chan. In fact, Jimmy Wang Yu is widely credited as the first true star of the genre.

Jimmy Wang Yu burst onto the scene in 1967 when he played the тιтular hero in Shaw Brothers’ The One-Armed Swordsman, one of several sword-fighting epics set in ancient China. Three years later, he transformed his career (and the industry) by writing, directing, and starring in The Chinese Boxer, which added actual kung fu to the mix.

As the first major movie in the genre to have hand-to-hand combat take precedence over weapon fighting, Jimmy Wang Yu’s film marked the beginning of a new era.

How Jimmy Wang Yu Helped Save Jackie Chan’s Career

Despite its lack of success, Jackie Chan and Jimmy Wang Yu’s joint appearance in The Killing Meteors is much more significant than it seems, as it established ties that ultimately became crucial to the survival of the future superstar’s career. A few years after The Killing Meteors, Chan needed Wang Yu’s help.

The movie he had co-starred in with Wang Yu, along with several others made during this period, was with an independent studio run by Hong Kong movie director, Lo Wei, who Chan claimed had tried to turn him into “Bruce Lee the Second.”

Chan had been unable to find success with Lo Wei, but after finding fame with Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, he was convinced to sign a new contract with the director. However, he quickly soured on it and broke his contract after being offered a sum he considered too outrageous to turn down.

Jackie Chan recounted in his biography, I am Jackie Chan, Lo Wei making an issue out of the contract breach, and alleged that there were threats of the triads getting involved. Chan explained that he then reached out to Jimmy Wang Yu, who had worked with Lo before.

Exactly what happened next isn’t clear, but Chan said that it was thanks to Wang Yu that Lo Wei ultimately backed off, enabling Chan to continue partnering with Golden Harvest, the studio that paved the way for Chan’s profile to rise even higher in the early 1980s.

Jimmy Wang Yu & Jackie Chan Had A Rematch 7 Years After The Killing Meteors

Jimmy Wang Yu’s role in getting Chan out of his contract with Lo Wei may provide an explanation for two of the oddest roles in Jackie Chan’s career. Seven years after their first movie together, Jimmy Wang Yu and Jackie Chan reunited for Fantasy Mission Force, a 1983 genre-bending action film that put the former in a supporting role.

In 1991, Jackie Chan made an appearance in a low-budget prison drama тιтled Island of Fire. Neither Island of Fire nor Fantasy Mission Force were comedies, or films that like good fits for Jackie Chan, even though the actor was successful enough at this point that he likely could have avoided both of them.

Instead, it appears that Chan’s involvement with them stems from their connection to Jimmy Wang Yu, who produced both movies. It’s long been ᴀssumed that Chan appeared in both movies as favors to Wang Yu more than anything else.

Although not the main protagonist, Fantasy Mission Force abruptly brings in Chan to take over the action, allowing the movie to end with a dramatic final battle between Chan and Wang Yu’s characters. Unlike the fight in The Killing Meteors, Chan walks away victorious this time, underscoring the fact that Jackie Chan, once an upcoming actor, had eclipsed the star power of the legendary Jimmy Wang Yu.