When Jackie Chan came to the Australian Alps and left with hypothermia

Memorable stories from Jackie Chan filming First Strike in Falls Creek in the 1990s Sun 5 Jul 2026 at 9:38am Thirty years ago a Hollywood crew arrived in the Victorian Alps looking for snow that could pass for Eastern Europe. Falls Creek answered the call. The film was First Strike, the fourth instalment in Jackie Chan's Police Story series, and the production team needed the resort's slopes for a James Bond-inspired snow chase. They were there to meet Steve Lee, a Falls Creek-based World Cup skier and three-time Winter Olympian, who the crew had called when they were scouting for a location. Canadian Ski Hall Of Fame member John Eaves had recommended Mr Lee. From there a team did a site reconnaissance before signing on the dotted line and securing Falls Creek's place in cinematic history. With the location locked in, a film crew returned to the Alpine resort in the winter of 1995 to start shooting, including a number of Canadian stunt skiers. When some of the stuntmen injured themselves early on due to the unfamiliar Australian snow conditions, Mr Lee was asked if he wanted to step in. "Because I had a business to run and what they were offering financially wasn't worth it I wasn't interested," he said. "But I asked what they would have paid the Canadian guys to do the main stunts and that was worth it!" A tough character Mr Lee watched Chan put his body on the line for his art, even though he had "slowed down, just a little" because of injury to film First Strike. "Jackie had broken his ankle making Rumble in the Bronx, [so] First Strike director Stanley Tong stepped in," Mr Lee said. "He'd do that whenever [it was required when] Jackie was injured. It had been happening for years and years." This included Mr Tong doing one of the most memorable stunts of First Strike during the Falls Creek shoot. "Stanley had to do the 100-foot-plus [30-metre] fall off an exploding helicopter into a frozen lake," Mr Lee said. But for the close-ups it was back to Chan in the frozen lake, and getting hyperthermia. "Jackie didn't have a wetsuit on and spent about 30 minutes in the lake climbing up and under an ice sheet trying to get 'the' shot," Mr Lee said. "He had to be pulled from the water and had medical treatment to warm up. Yes, it was hyperthermia. He's a tough character." A wild bunch of humans Stanley Tong was also tough. One of the more challenging stunts Mr Lee was asked to do during the filming was to drive a snowmobile into a tree and then fall over the handlebars. "I'm looking at him [Tong] thinking, 'I'm definitely going to break something doing this,'" he said. "When Stanley asked if I was good to go I said: 'Not really'. "Stanley went and did it for me and whacked his leg going through the tree and broke his ankle." During a shoot in the mountains the director also "temporarily" vanished when filming was paused due to bad weather. A tent and camp had been set up for cast and crew to stay warm during filming breaks, but while waiting for weather conditions to improve on this occasion Tong got frustrated with the hold-up and went for a walk. "We realised he hadn't come back about half an hour later, so we got down on our hands and knees and followed a set of footprints leaving the camp," Mr Lee said. "We followed them over to an edge and there was Stanley at the bottom of a big slope, he got to the edge and slipped off. "It was crazy stuff, they are a wild bunch of humans." Skiing into a Jackie Chan set It was during an exploding helicopter scene that Melbourne's Don Weston, his wife Ruth, and youngest son Geoff came across filming. "We had been out on the plains skiing and we skied back to get our car and that's where we saw the whole thing," Mr Weston said. Mr Weston wrote about it in his diary at the time. "We stood around with the crowd in the freezing conditions … people told us they were going to blow up a helicopter, so we waited," he wrote. "At last, the helicopter was lifted higher and they lit an explosive, but it didn't go off. "We waited as the fog got thicker. They tried again, this time successfully and I managed to photograph it." Gum trees in Ukraine Aussie-based online film reviewer and podcaster Nicholas Langdon was delighted to recognise Falls Creek when he first saw First Strike. The Jackie Chan fan said it was fun to see the "Aussie snow gums" in "Ukraine". "There is a cut where Jackie jumps into the back of a van and they cut to driving into a ski resort, and you can actually see the Falls Creek sign if you look closely," Mr Langdon said. "They put Ukraine flags around and Cyrillic writing, but it is quite transparently obviously Falls Creek because nothing looks that beautiful and unique, [the] landscape of the high country." Cam Smith, co-host of the UK and Canadian-based SpyHards podcast that decodes classic spy cinema, said the snow set action filmed in Falls Creek was "spectacular". "And so is the dive off the helicopter," he said. "But it's also how the environment affects Chan's action choreography that's interesting, like barely ducking underneath an oncoming snowmobile or feverishly rubbing his hands together to stay warm." Mr Smith said First Strike's snow setting as an action location was inspired by the George Lazenby 007 classic On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and director Stanley Tong put a lot of love into the homage. Non-stop action even when the cameras weren't rolling Mr Lee said there was a sense of camaraderie, friendship and fun both on and off the set. Mr Lee recalled a cast and crew dinner he attended during production. "Jackie came into the room. It was quite a big restaurant. The roof was wooden with beams exposed," he said. "Jackie went up on the back of a couch, onto the roof and jumped from strut to strut. Then did a double backflip and landed on the floor, smiled, and walked out. Everyone was cheering. "It was a really fun experience and to meet these extraordinary humans. Jackie is an extraordinary human."