Actor and martial artist Jackie Chan’s family history could be straight out of an action film.
The veteran Hong Kong actor, 71, recalled the surreal moment his late father, Charles, informed him that he once worked as a spy for the Chinese government in the 1940s in a new retrospective with PEOPLE. It wasn’t until Chan was in his 40s that he learned about his “father’s secret,” he said.
“One day, I was driving a car, my father suddenly said, ‘Son, I’m old. I might sleep and never wake up. I have a secret to tell you,” Chan recalled. The patriarch then informed him of his true identity, revealing that their surname was actually Fong.
Chan’s expansive family history is the subject of Mabel Cheung’s 2003 documentary Traces of the Dragon: Jackie Chan and His Lost Family, which explored the late patriarch’s time as a spy for Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party during the 1930s and 1940s. He fled to Hong Kong in the ’50s to flee the Communists.
The actor’s mother also had a colorful history: she was a former stage performer who smuggled opium in Shanghai before moving to Hong Kong. Chan remembered his mother as a “very traditional” woman in his retrospective with PEOPLE, noting that while she supported his films, she could not bear to watch her son do action stunts.
New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett
Jackie Chan in 1996
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“My mom never watched my whole movies,” he shared. “As soon as I’m doing a stunt, she’d turn around.” Chan recalled being a “very naughty boy” as a child who would often fight with other kids. A family friend emboldened his father to let him take up martial arts, which opened the door to his career in film.
Although already a star in Asia, Chan’s breakout role in the West was in the 1995 action comedy Rumble in the Bronx, where he played a Hong Kong policeman who gets caught up with a street gang while in New York for his nephew’s wedding. He would achieve greater success with the buddy cop Rush Hour franchise, starring opposite Chris Tucker as mismatched police officers fighting bad guys.
Chan can currently be seen returning to the Karate Kid franchise with the latest Karate Kid: Legends, in theaters now.
Watch Chan’s retrospective above.
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