Shanghai Jackie Chan Studio

Lore & Background

Shanghai has been inseparable from Jackie Chan's career since the early 1980s, when he began training and performing in the city's martial-arts studios. The Shanghai Jackie Chan Studio crystallizes that decades-long relationship into a permanent destination. Rather than a generic amusement park, it is structured around the grammar of his films: high-flying acrobatics, improvised-looking choreography, and the joyful, physical comedy that made his stunts a global language. The central stunt show recreates the spirit of set-pieces from his catalog—cars flipping, buildings being leapt from, a cast of performers executing the kind of gravity-defying sequences that audiences have cheered in cinemas for over forty years. The studio also serves a cultural function beyond entertainment. In a city that has produced its own wave of action filmmakers, Jackie Chan's brand stands as a bridge between old-school wuxia tradition and modern blockbuster spectacle. The complex positions his work not merely as Hollywood export but as a distinctly Chinese contribution to global action cinema, rooted in the same kung-fu lineages that Shanghai's own martial-arts schools have nurtured for generations. For visitors, the experience is designed to feel like stepping inside a film set. Corridors are dressed with props and set dressing reminiscent of his most famous locations, and the pacing of the show mirrors the rhythm of his movies—quick cuts of action punctuated by comedic beats, always landing on a crowd-pleasing finale that invites applause and whistles.

In Their Own Story

The afternoon sun hangs low over the Pudong skyline as a group of tourists squeezes through the studio's main gate, past a life-sized replica of a battered sedan mid-air. Inside, the air smells of fresh paint and rosin. A stunt performer in a rumpled leather jacket sprints up a wall, kicks off a scaffolding pipe, and lands in a crouch with a grin that says the whole thing was an accident. The crowd roars. In the back row, a young Chinese kid in a replica of the jacket from a 1978 film presses his face to the glass railing, whispering to his father, 'He really did that? No wires?' The father just laughs and shakes his head. Above them, a second performer is already rigging the next sequence—a shopping cart, a fire hose, and what looks like an entire bookshelf—because in this world, nothing is too ridiculous if the timing is perfect and the landing is clean.

Reader's Guide

The Shanghai Jackie Chan Studio opened in 2010 as part of the larger Shanghai International Tourism Resort development in Pudong. Its launch marked a significant moment in Jackie Chan's post-Hollywood career: a permanent, branded destination in China that put his name and his stunt tradition at the center of a major urban entertainment offering. The project mattered to his legacy because it shifted Jackie Chan from a traveling performer to a place-based cultural institution. Where his films had spread his brand globally, the studio rooted it in a specific city and made it accessible to domestic audiences who might never attend a live show. It also gave a new generation of Chinese stunt performers a stage calibrated to his exact style—fast, physical, comedic—rather than the more stylized wuxia tradition. In interviews around the studio's opening, Jackie Chan spoke about wanting the experience to feel like 'a movie you can walk through,' emphasizing that the stunt show should surprise even longtime fans with new choreography while honoring the physical comedy that defined his early work. He has returned to Shanghai multiple times since to appear at the studio, reinforcing the personal connection between the brand and the man behind it.

Did You Know?

• The studio's central stunt show is choreographed to feel like a continuous film sequence, with performers executing car flips, wall runs, and improvised-look fights in a single unbroken take for the audience.
• Shanghai is where Jackie Chan trained in the early 1980s before his international breakthrough, making the studio's location a deliberate nod to where his career began.
• The studio was designed so that visitors can see behind-the-scenes rigging and set construction, reflecting Jackie Chan's long-standing philosophy that the 'magic' of a stunt is half in the audience knowing it is real.
• The complex sits within a larger tourism resort area in Pudong, placing it in the modern, futuristic half of Shanghai rather than the historic old town—a visual contrast that mirrors the blend of tradition and spectacle