Camels and Cars In Dubai

Kung Fu Yoga has been busy filming all sorts of things in Dubai from car chases to camel races - and all of it in 50 deg heat.

Jackie Talks about Cars and Charity

Jackie on cars, philanthropy

The famous Hong Kong actor spills the beans on living life in the fast lane

It is a January night in Beijing and Jackie Chan is in the back of his Bentley Mulsanne. And cars, fast and luxurious cars, are on his mind.

A cloak of leather, dark glass and white steel is all that keeps Chan from a world of adoring Chinese fans on the urban melee beyond. Mayhem would ensue if his fans clocked it was the action hero cocooned in the mammoth Mulsanne.

There's no security detail with us as we cut through a squirming sea of traffic. Destination: a charity auction where Bentley have donated a Flying Spur for the benefit of Chan's charities.

Tonight the martial arts hero will tell the media he's stepping back from making only action films. He's broken bones and beaten up his 58-year-old body enough. Moviemaking is still his future _ his latest film The Chinese Zodiac opened across Asia late last year _ but he is increasingly focused now on philanthropy. He gives US$5 million (about 150 million baht) a year to charity and China's billionaires are handing him millions in cash and cheques for him to assign to causes.

It's a watershed day and Chan is thoughtful. His screen action heroics and his life have been, at times, indistinguishable. A self-confessed petrolhead, he learned to stunt drive in a rental car on Hong Kong streets, for instance.

"I got into cars from the movies. When I was young in the martial arts school, we didn't know about cars. And when we get in the film business then... you know modern film, the old day film, [they all had cars] so I wanted to learn how to do stunts. But I'm 16 and I don't have a licence. I have to rent a car with another man. We pay the money and he rents the car. After that, we start driving it like crazy, doing 360-degree handbrake turns... Afterwards we send the car back and it's useless!"

Chan grew up in Hong Kong and Australia, where his parents worked in an embassy. But martial arts and movies were his obsession. In turn, moviemaking financed his new found passion for the automobile.

"When we were filming there you see all the big stars, they're driving [nice cars]. I remember this famous actress - she drove a 450 Mercedes-Benz, another famous girl driving a Mustang. Then I start buying cars but also crashing cars. But I love cars. I love cars... I just love cars," he grins.

Not content with getting his adrenaline fix on set, Chan looked for other ways to get a buzz. Hong Kong was under British control at that time and the city's spectacular tunnels and mountain roads made for a perfect urban track for young drivers.

"In the old days I always drove crazy," he says, his eyes twinkling. "At night. Four o'clock. I check around, I know the road. In Hong Kong - we don't have a racing club track. So with some friends, we drove around on the highway."

It was talk-show host Jay Leno who once declared Chan the most famous man on the planet. Chan's garage might be a little more modest than Leno's but it is still impressive. It includes everything from one of the ultra-rare street-legal versions of the Paris-Dakar Mitsubishi Pajeros to Ferraris, a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley Continental GT.

The Pajero is about to go into a Jackie Chan museum in Shanghai, but most of his other cars, including a Mitsubishi GTO and a Jackie Chan edition Evo, remain in the garage of his Hong Kong mansion. An Evo was in his film Who Am I? but his most famous driving role was also one of his earliest, as one half of the team driving a gadget-laden whistling Subaru GL in the 1981 coast-to-coast film Cannonball Run.

Would he like to try the Cannonball Run in this Mulsanne? Chan grins.

"I'd like to," he says. "Time is the problem. No time." Chan has raced in touring cars and enticed other celebrities to compete in a race at the Macau GP event where the likes of Michael Schumacher cut their teeth.

Earlier in the day, Chan showed off his driving prowess by powering the Mulsanne through the hills above Beijing on which the Great Wall of China sits. He played the paddle shift like an accomplished pianist tinkling the ivories. He spends a lot of time in the back of luxury cars, but relished the chance to jump in the front.

"It's quiet and fast, but you don't feel it," he commentates as he tillers it with neat precision. "In it you are talking, driving, listening, boom! One second _ you end up where you are..."

He delivers his lines as if he is acting, with gestures and the rat-a-tat-tat of an action hero sequence. His driving is what an Edwardian English gent might have called "press-on" motoring. He likes the right pedal.

Cars and charity are his passions. Tonight they come together.

In Beijing we are close to the venue for tonight's auction. The great and the good of China's capital turn out to support Chan and expectations are high to turn the car into cash.

As the flash guns blitz, he says bye-bye, bracing himself with a big public smile and leaping, with a hint of action hero, into the fray.

His charm offensive and star turn worked. By evening's end, the Flying Spur had gone for $1 million. Such is his horsepower.

SOURCE: BANGKOK POST

JC Auto Network Anniversary

Recently Jackie was in Guangzhou to celebrate the first anniversary of the JC Auto Network.

News reports about the event have been very scarce because it was very low-key but I found this one this morning.

Basically what it is says is that Jackie spoke about what he had in mind when he founded the network.

In brief:

• Jackie wanted to start the network as a continuation of his commitment to charity and his sense of responsibility as a public figure.
  
  
• For the good of the public Jackie wanted to promote a positive, healthy, green living car culture, in which people, and vehicles could have a healthy and harmonious society.
  
  
• Jackie wanted to take advantage of his own resources and join hands with companies willing to do community work to have a greater influence with the public through cooperation.
  
  
• JC Auto Network has donated computers and school supplies to schools in Sichuan.
  
  
• The network will consciously work against drunk driving.
  
  
• The network will actively promote cross-cultural understanding.
  
  
• The network will actively promote green cars, green living, reduce emissions, as well as good, considerate driving habits.
  
  
• Jackie wanted to create a site where people can enjoy friends, enjoy their car and through interaction encourage each other to highest standards.
  
  
• Because car ownership is not restricted to just buying a car but maintaining it as well the site caters for all aspects of car care from repairs, maintainance, to insurance. These must all also reflect Jackie's emphasis on being committed to delivering services to the highest standard.
  
  
• The network will launch various other sections in the near future such a video feature so that users can show the exciting life of cars!
  

"Jackie Chan vehicle network" in low-active operation for a year, to be called the industry's legendary pace of growth has made costly results. In an anniversary celebration of the occasion, the website of our founder, Mr. Chan talked about he founded automotive media in mind.

Mr. Chan has been committed to public charities, as a public figure, with a greater impact after the continuation of this responsibility, and love had become a public, the community of love and big responsibilities.


While doing an Internet automotive media is not only advocate we have a positive, healthy, green living car culture, people, vehicles, a healthy and harmonious society, it is also the cause of a public good, Mr. Chan continuous extension. Makes Jackie Chan to take advantage of its own resources and more willing to do public business enterprises and the public to join hands to do the public more influence. In Sichuan, Jackie Chan vehicle network computers donated by an orphaned and disabled children in classrooms, so that children sitting in a classroom can be exciting to know the outside world, Jackie Chan vehicle networks of Internet users to donate a lot of school supplies and books.


Jackie Chan vehicle network will also promote "consciously resist the drunk driving," "Biao vehicle User Exposure," "crossing cultures" and other public welfare activities, as the "crossing cultures" initiative, like Jackie Chan vehicle network promoting all the green vehicles, green living , energy conservation and reduce carbon emissions, give way to pedestrians and civilized driving, which is China's environmental protection efforts to the cause. Mr. Chan is also a car person, not only that, he wanted all car friends can better car, enjoy the cars, car, so a good platform to share their foundation. Jackie Chan vehicle network owners to promote high-quality drivers to make a civilization, the ultimate site to interact with friends from the common efforts to civilized driving, high-quality concepts driven by the widest range of spread. These healthy, active life car culture is the Jackie Chan way to do auto media, the original intention, nor is the Jackie Chan vehicle network, not only for the gallop of the concept.

Jackie Chan vehicle network owners are more concerned about buying a car after driving car repair and other real state. So Jackie Chan vehicle network is not limited to the value of online, and more for the User to provide services to facilitate the real line, reflected in and auto repair, maintenance, vehicle insurance and other agencies, which also reflects the brother Jackie Chan has repeatedly stressed that the integrity of the implementation and practical, and for the User Services 5 true expression. Online, Jackie Chan vehicle network will launch a number of features sections, such as film and television, Mr. Chan has a very high professional resources and professional spirit, Jackie Chan vehicle network to the legacy of this spirit, integration of resources to build strong car video section, through the star, netizens, automobile brand interaction, in order to User showing vivid and exciting picture of life vehicles.

Finally, Mr. Chan said to everyone: After a winter of rest in order to have blooming in spring, summer and prosperity, just as I was the Bird's Nest in May of this year's concert theme of "confidence in China." We would like to have confidence in ourselves, we have to have confidence in China. There dream catch, adhere to dream, uphold the passion, I believe that our young people are flying in their own area of the sky.

Source: AUTO.SOHU.COM or TRANSLATED