‘THE TRADITIONAL THING’ IN ‘THE MODERN AGE’

Abstract

The films of Hong Kong's Jackie Chan have frequently been compared to those of American silent comedian star Buster Keaton, but the foundations for a cross‐cultural comparison of this kind have not been examined. Drawing on varied kinds of sources (historical scholarship, auto/biographies, primary and secondary journalism, and finally films), this paper contextualizes and fleshes out the ways the performance styles and themes of Keaton's and Chan's films are logically congruent. The similarly dynamic, modernizing social spaces of Keaton's early twentieth‐century America and Chan's late twentieth‐century Hong Kong—including the entertainment industries that developed in these settings—provide a historical backdrop against which to compare the performers' early training and careers in theater and film. Multi‐layered biographical parallels between Keaton and Chan then inform an analysis of the narratives, themes and gag patterns important to various kinds of transformation to be found in their work.

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