Five years later after the death of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan (Cheng Long) became widely famous in Hong Kong.
Jackie Chan was originally named Chen Gangsheng. He was born in 1954 in Hong Kong though his ancestral home is Shandong. Because he lived a poor life when he was young, he was sent to the Peking Opera School run by Master Yu Jim Yuen. Ten years later, he became a master in Kungfu. At the age of 17, he became a stunt man and acted in Bruce Lee’s films. After that, he changed his name to Chen Yuanlong, and then to Cheng Long in 1976. In 1978, Jackie Chan played the leading roles in the Eagles Shadow and Drunken Master, but he did not gain much success from these films. However in 1985, Jackie Chan directed the film Police Story, consolidating his dominance as an action star. Jackie Chan then went to Hollywood and became popular for his role in Rumble in the Bronx. Later, he directed Rush Hour and the Highbinders, becoming the most popular Chinese star with the highest box office value in Hollywood.
After the success of Jackie Chan, Jet Li (Li Lianjie), another man from the Chinese mainland, rose to action movie stardom.
Jet Li is a Beijinger. He started to learn Kungfu when he young. From 1974 to 1978, he topped five consecutive National Wushu Championships and participated in performances abroad several times. In 1982, when he was 19, he played the leading role in the film The Shaolin Temple, which was backed by Chung Yuen Motion Picture Co. The film, made on the Chinese mainland, included a number of national Wushu champions, and demonstrated the real Kungfu of China, surprising the world soon after its release. It set record box office returns in Hong Kong and was widely popular in both Asian and Western countries. It directly raised the enthusiasm for learning Chinese Kungfu around the world. The film essentially paved the road to fame and Hollywood for Jet Li.
In 1983, action films Wulin Zhi and The Undaunted Wudang were produced on the Chinese mainland. The leading actor of the former one was Wu Bin, then coach of the Beijing Wushu Team, and the leading actor of the latter one was Zhao Changjun, a national Wushu champion. Both films were instantaneously popular.
In 2000, the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee, caused a huge international response, creating a martial arts film craze across the world. The film is based on the story of the same name written by Wang Du Lu. Ang Lee incorporated in the film the essence of Kungfu film and literary film, interpreting Chinese classical aesthetic tradition and emotional concepts from a new perspective. The film won many awards at international film festivals, and got the 73rd Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, gaining the highest international reputation in the history of Kungfu films. In addition, the film also had spectacular box office success, hitting more than 200 million global box office revenues, the highest among the Chinese-language films ever. After that, Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou, and Kungfu, composed, directed, and starred by Stephen Chow, also met with great success, with a global box office hitting more than 100 million.
As for the popularization of TV action series, Hong Kong played a major role. Many Louis Cha novels were adapted and made into TV series shows. The most popular TV series shows produced on the Chinese mainland include the Swordsmen, The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils (Eightfold Path of the Heavenly Dragon). All of these were met with a high audience rating. In fact, nearly all the actors played in these series were Kungfu laymen. But the popularity of these TV series did not last long. Because most of the actions were performed using stunt skills, the series lacked authenticity—a common weakness of TV action series. Meanwhile, other adapted works took quite a different approach to the characters and plots compared to the books, diluting the historical and cultural connotations of the original works. Poor actors and actresses also further diminished the attraction of the TV series shows.