Actor Daniel Wu says Jackie Chan considers him like a son

A 2009 filepic of Jackie Chan and Daniel Wu at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur to promote 'Shinjuku Incident'. Photo: Ong Soon Hin/The Star

Into The Badlands star Daniel Wu, who got his acting break in Hong Kong in the late 1990s, recently spoke extensively with journalist May Lee on The May Lee Show.

The 45-year-old touched on various topics including breaking barriers in Hollywood, racism, the pandemic and the letter he wrote to Bruce Lee (Dear Bruce Lee, I wish you were here...) published on The Undefeated site on June 6.

One of the things that came up during the conversation, too, was Wu's experience working with Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan.

"He's definitely a workaholic, he cannot sit still," Wu said about Chan. "He's working ALL the time."

The Asian American had acted with Chan in films like New Police Story (2004) and Shinjuku Incident (2009).

Wu, who is currently in Oakland, California, told Lee: "The movies that we worked on, I worked my a** off. He would, oftentimes, say to me 'I'm glad to see that you're not taking your job lightly and that you work hard and you're taking the opportunity that's been given to you and working really hard'."

"A lot of my work ethic come from him as well, from being around him for all those years, you definitely learned something through osmosis.

"He's definitely a good mentor to have."

According to Wu, Chan considered him almost like a second son in some ways.

"I think his son is like 10 years younger than me. And a lot of times, like when he couldn't deal with his son - and he knew his son looked up to me - he would go, 'Hey, tell him to stop playing video games so much. Or tell him to do this, because he doesn't listen to me.' So I'd do that," recalled Wu, with a laugh.