Visiting filmmaker not sitting up like Jackie

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BEN LANGFORD

September 7th, 2010

DARWIN has been mined as a potential source for links to an international martial arts superstar.

Do-it-yourself filmmaker Maria Tran was in the Territory capital searching for links to the incomparable Jackie Chan.

The 25-year-old Sydneysider is making a documentary about Chan and will travel to Hong Kong in December to try and meet him.

She is tracking down people who share Chan's name, or are linked to him in some way. And she sends him postcards from each town she visits in her quest.

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But looking for Jackie Chan connections in Darwin didn't prove as easy as in some cities.

Tran couldn't find any namesakes and had to pursue a few tenuous links to the star of Rush Hour and Shanghai Knights.

Darwin alderman Bob Elix made it into the documentary as a representative of the Chan Ward. And Tran was photographed with Ben Little, perhaps Darwin's biggest Jackie Chan fan, on Harry Chan Ave in Darwin's CBD.

She hadn't tried any of the 12 Chans in the NT phone book but planned to chase them up after she left.

Her quest may be made harder by the fact she's been blocked from the inner circle of Jackie Chan's Facebook friends.

But she's not short on enthusiasm.

"There's all sorts of ways I'm trying to find the linkages," she said.

"At the minute it's all been a social media campaign."

Tran last night headed for Perth and then Adelaide, where a "flash mob" will descend on a surprise city location for an impromptu Jackie Chan theatrical performance.

www.questforjackiechan.com