Charles Chan (18 December 1914 – 26 February 2008) and Lee-lee Chan (1916 – 28 February 2002) were the parents of actor/director/singer Jackie Chan and the grandparents of actor/singer/composer Jaycee Chan. Due to being the father of Jackie Chan, Charles made cameos in some of Chan's films such as Police Story 2 and also starred in his own film once made by a company trying to advertise it as a Jackie Chan film.
Their story was made into a 2013 feature film A Tale of Three Cities directed by Mabel Cheung.
Charles's biography
Nationalist guard
According to Charles' father, he still needed discipline when Charles returned to Nanjing at the age of 20. His grandfather was a good friend of Chinese National Revolutionary Army General Ku Chu-tung (Gu Zhutong, Chinese: 顧祝同) and after displaying his martial arts skills, Charles became General Gu's orderly which was similar to being a personal guard according to Charles. General Gu later became Chief of Staff to General Chiang Kai-shek.
General Gu had many armed guards and Charles was also given a rifle of his own. He lost his job as an orderly when he accidentally pulled the trigger of his automatic rifle which startled him causing him to drop it. The rifle continued to fire rounds as it spun on the ground.
Charles returned home and eventually found employment on a Mitsubishi cargo ship in Wuhan.
Mitsubishi
Of the seven general maintenance workers in his group, he became the leader. This group of seven also openly traded merchandise without official permits. Linen was especially very expensive in Nanjing, so they bought the linen in Wuhu and shipped it to Nanjing. Once the linen was in Nanjing, it was traded for salt. According to Charles, when Japanese workers arrived in Nanjing to seek employment, they felt they were not given any benefits and accused Charles and his group of smuggling and they were arrested by Japanese authorities. Upon the fourth day of their imprisonment, he and his group had their hands tied behind their backs and were taken to witness an execution. What they saw caused them to literally faint, lose their appetites and experience restless sleep. One week later, they were taken again to witness another execution. Charles, while recalling this horrific experience in the film documentary, Traces of a Dragon: Jackie Chan and his Lost Family, said that he and the other six workers in his group, upon witnessing another execution, became like zombies.
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in July 1937. Soon, under the pretext of creating a "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere", the Japanese Imperial Army launched an all-out invasion of South-East Asia, but their primary target was always China.
Through political connections, a relative of Charles pleaded with the Japanese authorities to release him from prison. Of the seven workers, only five came out alive, among them was Charles. Deciding to quit his job on the cargo ship, Charles returned to General Gu, who was Dai Li's boss, to ask for help. This time, General Gu got Charles a job in the Intelligence Bureau of the Administration Office as a Secret Agent of the First War Zone. According to Charles, the Nationalist Government was corrupt and currency became less and less usable as even the price of a stick of fried bread (Youtiao) skyrocketed into extremely unreasonable prices.
Charles then led his entire unit of 38 men to the headquarters in Shanghai where they all intended to formally hand in their resignations. However, being the leader of this unit made him the target of two assassination attempts, one of which occurred on the way to the headquarters in Shanghai. While descending down some stairs, someone shouted that he had too much power and shot him. The bullet went through the upper calf of his leg. Later, someone shot Charles from behind and this time the bullet took off a piece of his scalp near the crown of his head. Charles expressed that he believes it was Communists who tried to kill him as he was a Nationalist.
In the meantime, the Japanese Army were taking the coastal cities of China with overwhelming force causing the Chinese population to continually move further and further inland. Charles fled to Anhui, but it was too devastated from the Japanese air raids for him to stay. Both of his parents and his sister were killed in these air raids. He then fled to Chongqing (Chungking), but returned three or four months later. Living alone among the ruins in Anhui, he met his first wife and they had two sons, Fang Shide (房仕德) and Fang Shisheng (房仕勝). Eventually, they moved to Wuhu.