Risking life in order to pull off impeccable stunts to ensure fans’ enjoyment was pretty ubiquitous for Jackie Chan in his prime days in the movie realm. However, one of his most impressive feats doesn’t involve jumping off buildings and chasing buses, as legend has it that the filming of a particular scene in Dragon Lord was so grueling that it even puts Stanley Kubrick to shame.
Kubrick, who was pretty well-known for being a perfectionist, reportedly put Shelley Duvall through hell for the staircase scene in The Shining, which reportedly took 127 takes. But surprisingly, the grueling scene appears pretty lenient in comparison to Chan’s Dragon Lord, which reportedly took 2900 takes.
Dragon Lord’s One Scene Took an Ungodly Amount of Takes
Like most Jackie Chan movies, Dragon Lord too witnesses the actor putting his body through the wringer to pull off stunts, however, the highlight of the action comedy remains its production. While Dragon Lord might not hold a candle to Chan’s other classics at the time, including Drunker Master and Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, it still has its charm, thanks to the Hong Kong legend’s unreal commitment. But filming one scene in particular was one of the most grueling parts of the movie that featured a pyramid fight scene, taking 2900 takes according to the DVD release.
Although the movie as a whole didn’t hit the numbers in China that the cast and crew members were hoping for, it surprisingly did well in Japan, becoming its 9th highest-grossing foreign film in 1982.
Jackie Chan Spent 40 Days Perfecting the Shuttlecock Scene
While the pyramid fight sequence appears the most taxing part of the movie, this wasn’t the lone challenging aspect of the movie, as Jackie Chan spent 40 days perfecting the shuttlecock scene. Producer Raymond Chow revealed that the actor was adamant about doing the whole elaborate sequence in one take, refusing to stitch the scenes together through editing.
“It turned out that he had spent 40 days on a scene of him kicking a shuttlecock, an admittedly very difficult and elaborate action sequence involving all kinds of jumps and somersaults that he intended to do in one continuous shot. I was amazed. I told him, ‘Jackie, film is make-believe! Why don’t you make do with editing?’ He was adamant. In the end, he did it in one take.” Chow told Backstage.com.
Although Dragon Lord is often overshadowed by other classics featuring the Hong Kong legend at the time, the action comedy stands as a testament to Jackie Chan’s unbreakable spirit.
Dragon Lord is available to stream on Paramount Plus.
Source: Dragon Lord DVD release
