The Disciple

While I’ve been in Beijing, I’ve finally accomplished a small dream that I’ve had for many years and the grand finale of The Disciple competition has successfully come to an end. Not only has the past year of activities for The Disciple competition brought honor to the extensive and profound nature of Chinese martial arts, it has also allowed Chinese culture and the Chinese spirit to be well known around the world again. The awards presentation will be shown on the eve of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony where many film makers and artists will be gathered together, giving blessings and well wishes for the Olympic Games.

I remember that from when we first started making preparations for the program until the beginning of the event, more than 200,000 people registered to enter the competition. Initially, this event was only open to people from Mainland China but in the end, we allowed other people to enter as well. I can’t say that the contestants came from all over the world but there were some who came from Europe and there were even some from other countries too. Through a process of elimination, the 200,000 entrants were filtered down to over a hundred people. Later, there were just over sixty competitors, then it was down to thirty two, and then it came down to sixteen finalists. At last, an extremely magnificent grand final was held today at the Great Wall of China.

To tell you the truth, China is very busy preparing for the Beijing Olympics at the moment so being able to hold this event at Badaling on the Great Wall of China in Beijing wasn’t an easy task, and I feel extremely honored. Also, a lot of friends made a special appearance in the grand final, including: John Woo, Han Sanping, Wu Siyuan, Tsui Hark, Stanley Tong, Peter Pau, Cheng Pei Pei, and Chen Daoming.

John Woo, Chen Daoming, and Tsui Hark were the special guests for presenting the final awards and they announced the three finalists of The Disciple. The winner was Jack Tu Sheng Cheng, runner-up was Yang Zheng, and third place went to Yi Yang. Two of the finalists are from America while one finalist is from Tianjin.

A lot of people have been discussing whether or not The Disciple would be like another type of entertainment program, not a real competition for selecting talented rising stars but purely a scam that uses tricks to deceive people. I can tell everyone this – I truly hope that through this competition I am able to select some new stars with potential, give them a chance to perform their skills and talents; and also discover some new blood to inject into the entertainment industry, offer them advice and help them advance in their career.

No official announcement has been made about a second competition for The Disciple yet but a lot of people have already registered to participate. Actually, I personally don’t want to hold a second competition so soon because I want to arrange the work for the sixteen finalists first, and at the moment we’ve already prepared three scrīpts that will be filmed by three new directors respectively. To the other contestants who didn’t make it into the top sixteen, don’t be discouraged. We will be selecting people to play characters according to the requirements of the scrīpt and if there is a suitable role, we will also invite you to participate – and it doesn’t matter if you were placed thirty something or fiftieth because apart from the main characters in each movie, we will also need different types of male and female actors, people to play comedic characters, plus others.

This group of newcomers will all be signed under the artiste department in my Jackie Chan Company in China, and over the next couple of years we’ll start shooting some new productions so that they’ll have an opportunity to perform on screen. As for Jack Tu Sheng Cheng and the others, I might select a few of them to follow me and be by my side so they can learn about the work involved on the set, learn about editing, and industry secrets because I want them to become well-rounded people who know about everything that happens both on the screen and behind the scenes.

After the competition grand final ended, I invited all the contestants and friends to a private club for dinner. All the competitors could finally relax and enjoy a meal. Before the start of the competition, they had to move into Wendu Shuicheng (Hot Spring Leisure City) and receive training for the challenges. Everyone’s cell phones were confiscated and they were only allowed to make a two minute phone call to talk with their families, the rest of the time was used to prepare for battle on the competition field.

At the dinner party, I watched them eat the foods that they wouldn’t dare to eat during the competition because they wanted to keep in top form, and now they were eating to their heart’s content. During the eight months they received training and competed, everyone wanted to maintain their best possible shape and condition so they strictly refrained themselves from eating or drinking too much. From this you can tell how important the competition was to them.

After dinner, they all went on stage to perform a song one after another. As I listened to them sing, I felt that their future ahead of them had absolutely no limits because every one of them was multi-talented; they know kung fu, they can act, dance, sing, and play the piano. But Jack Tu Sheng Cheng not only knows how to play the piano, he also knows how to play the guitar and Guzheng, and he knows how to speak fluent English, sing, and perform martial arts. I guess you could say that the eighteen artistic talents are all gathered into his one body.

On the next day, I saw parts of The Disciple grand finale being shown on CCTV and I thought this was quite strange because I knew that CCTV doesn’t broadcast this kind of television program; usually these types of shows are only shown on Beijing TV, so why did they make an exception this time? Later I found out that the Chinese government rated The Disciple as one of the healthiest, most educational, and most high-aiming competition programs; and this is why they permitted us to film the event at Badaling on the Great Wall of China. As everyone already knows, it’s nearing the start of the 2008 Olympic Games so there are a lot of locations that the Chinese government will not approve to be lent out for external uses like filming. This time we were granted permission and I honestly feel very happy and honored.

Awaiting the Arrival of the Olympics

Now that The Disciple competition is completed, I will fully concentrate on the rehearsal for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. At the moment we have rehearsals every night. Even the traffic in Beijing is running very smoothly without congestion, and the Beijing people I’ve seen so far have been very happy as if the Olympics were on every day. I can truly sense that they love their country very much. At night time I see a lot of police cars on the roads going through the routes they need to follow for when the Olympics take place, and on every street there is someone on duty standing guard making sure that everything is in order. I have many artist friends who tell me they have very conflicting feelings: on one hand they hope they can stay in Beijing so they can support the Olympic Games, but on the other hand they also want to leave Beijing during the Games because they don’t want their presence to add anymore troubles to the city. If there were less people in the city, then there would be fewer cars used on the road, which also means that the air quality would be better too. Furthermore, if there were fewer people in Beijing then there would be more space for foreign tourists to come here and visit.

Anyway, I’m going to be in Beijing and I’ll be doing some promotional work for the Beijing Olympics; appearing on some television programs, giving interviews on radio stations and other things. I can feel myself being fully charged with energy, as if I were ready to take part and compete in the Olympics. I know everyone in Beijing is actively and positively putting in their efforts for the Olympic Games and I’m honestly very happy to be one of those people as well. At the moment, everyone is eagerly awaiting the start of the Olympics. This is the chance that China has been waiting for over a hundred years and like the leaders of the country, I hope China will hold a very special and successful Olympic Games. We are ready!

Text and photos ©2008 The JC Group. All Rights Reserved.

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