At 71, Jackie Chan Has Recorded a Farewell Song — A Final Message He Wants the World to Hear After He Is Gone

For more than six decades, Jackie Chan has built a career around movement.

He has jumped from buildings, fallen through windows, crashed vehicles, fought through impossible odds, and performed stunts that left audiences wondering how anyone could survive them. His films turned physical risk into entertainment and transformed martial arts cinema into a global language.

But at 71, Jackie Chan is speaking about something that cannot be defeated with speed, strength, or choreography.

Time.

At a film premiere in Beijing on December 28, 2025, the legendary actor revealed something deeply personal. While speaking about life, aging, loss and the people he has said goodbye to over the years, Chan disclosed that he had already recorded a farewell song.

The song is not intended for immediate release.

Instead, Chan said it should remain private until after his death.

According to China.org.cn, the announcement came during the Beijing premiere of Unexpected Family, where Chan became emotional while reflecting on the losses he had experienced in recent years. He explained that watching people close to him leave this world had changed the way he thought about his own life.

The revelation was striking precisely because of who Jackie Chan has always been.

He is the man audiences grew up watching seemingly outrun danger. He became famous by making the impossible look almost ordinary. Yet now, rather than talking about another stunt or another action sequence, he was talking about what happens when there are no more scenes left to perform.

And his answer was remarkably simple:

Leave behind a song.

Not another blockbuster.

Not another award.

Not another stunt.

A song.

A final message.

A Different Kind of Jackie Chan Story

Jackie Chan's career has always been closely associated with physical courage.

Born in Hong Kong in 1954, Chan was enrolled in the China Drama Academy at the age of seven, where he spent roughly a decade training in acrobatics, martial arts, acting and singing. According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, those disciplines would eventually become the foundation of his international career.

He entered the film industry as a stunt performer and gradually expanded his role, becoming an actor, director, producer and stunt choreographer.

His rise was not immediate.

Chan worked for years in Hong Kong cinema before becoming a global star. His distinctive combination of martial arts, physical comedy, elaborate choreography and willingness to perform dangerous stunts eventually separated him from conventional action stars.

His international breakthrough transformed him from a Hong Kong movie icon into a recognizable name around the world.

By 2016, the Academy had given Chan an Honorary Award for his extraordinary contribution to cinema. He became the first Chinese actor to receive an Honorary Oscar, an achievement that formally recognized a career that had already influenced generations of filmmakers and performers.

Yet his legacy has never been limited to movies.

Chan has also spent decades involved in charitable and humanitarian work. UNICEF says he established the Jackie Chan Charitable Foundation in 1988 and became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2004. His humanitarian work has included advocacy involving children facing poverty, discrimination, trafficking and other difficult circumstances.

That broader history makes his recent comments particularly interesting.

The farewell song is not necessarily the first time Chan has used music to communicate with audiences. Singing was part of the training he received during his childhood, and music has appeared throughout his career.

But this song is different.

It is not simply another performance.

It is being treated as something intended to exist beyond his lifetime.

Why Did Jackie Chan Record a Farewell Song?

Chan's explanation centered on loss.

In recent years, he has watched friends, relatives and people from his professional world pass away. At the premiere, he described how those experiences made him think differently about the passage of time.

According to China.org.cn, Chan said that he had gradually reached the realization that things he wanted to say should be said while he was still alive, and things he wanted to do should not necessarily be postponed.

That perspective is significant because mortality is something many people avoid discussing openly.

For someone whose public image has been built around surviving dangerous situations, the subject is even more striking.

Chan joked during the event about the possibility of dying during a dangerous stunt and becoming a legend, but the humor was accompanied by a much more reflective message about growing older. The Star, citing his comments, reported that Chan described aging as a natural process and said that growing old gradually can itself be something to appreciate.

That is very different from the image of the young action hero who appeared almost invincible on screen.

The Jackie Chan of the 1980s and 1990s seemed to live in perpetual motion.

The Jackie Chan speaking in 2025 seemed more interested in what happens when the motion finally stops.

The Song Is Meant to Wait

Perhaps the most unusual part of Chan's announcement is not that he recorded a song.

It is when he wants people to hear it.

The song is intended to remain unreleased during his lifetime.

Chan reportedly told the audience that it should be made public after he dies. Reports describe it as a final message containing thoughts he wants to leave behind for fans and loved ones.

That decision gives the recording a meaning that is difficult to replicate.

A normal song belongs to the present.

A farewell song recorded in advance belongs partly to the future.

The audience that eventually hears it will know something the original audience does not: that the person singing is no longer there to explain the words.

Every lyric would therefore carry another layer of meaning.

The voice would be alive in the recording, while the person behind the voice would be gone.

That is what makes the idea so emotionally powerful.

A Final Conversation With His Audience

Jackie Chan has spent most of his career communicating with audiences through characters.

He has played policemen, fighters, adventurers, fathers, mentors, outsiders and comic heroes.

People know him through those roles.

But a farewell song would be different because it would not require a character.

There would be no costume.

No fight sequence.

No carefully constructed movie ending.

Just his voice.

The concept resembles a final letter that happens to be set to music.

For someone who has spent decades entertaining millions of people, the song could become a final opportunity to speak directly to the people who accompanied him throughout his career.

Fans who first discovered him through Hong Kong action movies could hear it.

People who grew up with Rush Hour could hear it.

Audiences who know him as Mr. Han from The Karate Kid films could hear it.

Younger viewers who discovered him through animation and family entertainment could hear it.

Different generations may know completely different versions of Jackie Chan, but the voice in that recording could connect them all.

From Stunts to Legacy

There is an interesting contrast between the way Chan built his career and the way he is now thinking about legacy.

His early reputation was built on physical risk.

The Academy's biography of Chan describes his transition from stuntman to actor, director and producer and highlights the extraordinary path that took him from traditional performance training into international cinema.

His action scenes became famous partly because audiences understood that Chan was willing to put his own body into situations that most performers would avoid.

But physical achievements are temporary.

A stunt lasts seconds.

A fight sequence lasts minutes.

A film may last two hours.

A career can last decades.

But eventually, even a legendary career becomes part of history.

That may be why the idea of a farewell song feels so appropriate.

Unlike a stunt, a recording does not depend on the body continuing to perform.

Unlike a movie, it does not require a character.

And unlike an award, it does not symbolize what others think of him.

It allows Chan himself to leave something in his own voice.