Jackie Chan goes from 70 to 27 in action flick A Legend! Here’s the trailer

Before he can be found as a martial arts master in Karate Kid: Legends, which hits theaters on May 28, 2025, Jackie Chan stars in the Chinese action film A Legend, in which he plays two roles.

Directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Stanley Tong, best known for his collaboration with Jackie Chan over three decades and ten films, Legend is the sequel to the 2005 film Myth.

In this fantasy film, the action star plays professor and archaeologist Mr. Chen. The latter notices that the texture of the objects discovered by his students during the expedition on the glacier bears a strange resemblance to the jade pendant he saw in his dream. He then suspects that the pendant is a mystical link between the dream realm and reality. The professor is said to be directly related to a young general of the Han Dynasty.

From 70 years to 27 years…

you imagine Jackie Chan70 years old, in the film the role of an archaeologist, but also a general, who should probably be 27 years old. Artificial intelligence was used in the production to rejuvenate the kung fu icon. This was revealed by the producers of the feature film during an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Bona Film Group studio in Shanghai.

site South China Morning PostT reports that the AI ​​made it possible to recreate the actor’s young face from his current features before adding a body double to it in post-production. Early reviews of the film highlighted the lack of fluidity of expressions, overly smooth appearance, while others regretted that Jackie Chan himself would not perform the stunts of his younger version.

On the other hand, the site China Daily He points out that the artificial intelligence in this film was only used to rejuvenate the star, as the epic battlefield scene, in which more than 10,000 horses roam the vast meadows, was actually shot using traditional methods in Zhaosu County.

Robert Zemeckis also recently used AI to rejuvenate Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in The Best Years of Our Lives. However, the process is different because the American director didn’t just create young faces for his actors. The team collaborated with visual effects studio Metaphysic, which used thousands of archival images of Tom Hanks and other actors to create the digital makeup.