Lee is dead and Chan is ageing, although he has not discussed retiring yet from action-acting. Who will keep the banner flying when he does?

Not even Chan knows the answer, but he does offer reasons why there are few new stars ready to leap into the fray.

"It's very difficult to make martial arts films in Hong Kong because in 1997, many families are scared something would happen so they send their children to America, England and Australia," said Chan in accented English, referring to the handback of the former British territory to Chinese rule.

The star of "Rush Hour" and "Shanghai Noon" estimated that more than half a million children were sent away and although many have since returned to Hong Kong they have little interest in the old traditions.

"For some, they have been away for 10 years. They are all grown up. They drink Coca-Cola, listen to rap music and they are just not into Chinese things," he said earlier this year prior to leaving for Thailand to shoot his latest film, "80 Days Around the World".

Chan, 49, is the last of a dying Hong Kong breed known as the "red trousers", a term originating from the Beijing Opera school where Chan was apprenticed at the age of six and where he learned all of his martial arts and acrobatic skills.

Besides being the colour of pants worn during training and performing, red trousers symbolize the indentured servitude of children who were bound by contract and often forced to live and train at these schools.

Chinese opera tells stories through a synthesis of stylized acting, singing, mime, acrobatic fighting and dancing, and the "red trousers" were the workhorses of the opera company.

Stuntman training

Chan credits his hard training at the school to his physical success as a stuntman, stunt double and actor.

"No one is interested anymore in training in opera so that is why over the years the opera schools in Hong Kong have all closed. It takes so much time to get to that level and sacrifice. My parents sold me into the opera school, and I signed a 10-year contract to learn there.

"But I would never even put my kids through that kind of training," Chan said. "I think many now know what that training was like for me - up early, handstands on chairs for hours, 5,000 punches and kicks. I would never train like that again."

Chan was also influenced by the martial arts films of Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers studios, where he started out as a teenager working as a bit stuntman before moving on to make more than 100 movies and videos.

"I learned a lot from that period of filmmaking," Chan recalled, "How to be a stuntman and I watched how to be a stunt coordinator from those great filmmakers. It's those people that were really my teachers when it comes to films."

Early martial arts films drew on the expertise of Beijing Opera to choreograph stunt fighting. Chan, who had never intended a career in film, was sent as a teen-ager by the opera company in Hong Kong to work on film stunts. As the popularity of the traditional Chinese opera started to wane in the 1950s, his teachers steered him toward movies so he could keep working.

Hong Kong-born American action star Robin Shou's directorial debut "Red Trousers: The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen" provides some insight into the kind of training Chan received.

The documentary, which is currently doing the film festival circuit, traces both the history of Beijing opera and its future in the hands of a new generation of Chinese children.

'Dying art'

"Chinese opera is a dying art but through these kids, they are keeping it alive. When I interviewed these kids and saw what they were putting themselves through, I was humbled," said Shou, who has starred in more than 20 Hong Kong action films and is known in the United States for his Liu Kang character in "Mortal Combat".

"In the old days, like with Jackie Chan, they were forced to train. But the kids today in China who join opera schools do it for the passion," said Shou.

Chan has his own plans to help Hong Kong's martial arts industry.

"What I want to do is open a school in Hong Kong and teach people film martial arts and how to become good stunt co-coordinators and action editors. In this way, I think I can help," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2003)