Hong Kong and global film icon Jackie Chan will attend the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland this summer to receive the prestigious Pardo alla Carriera, or Career Leopard award, organizers unveiled on Tuesday.

The festival will bestow the honor upon Chanon the evening ofSaturday,Aug.9, with the actoralso set tointroducehis filmsProject A(1983) and Police Story(1985), on both of which he worked as star and director, as part of the tribute to his career. The festival audience will also have an opportunity to see and hear Chanon Sunday, Aug. 10during apublicconversation event.

Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, highlighted: Director, producer, actor, screenwriter, choreographer, singer, athlete, and daredevil stuntman,Jackie Chanis bothakey figure in contemporary Asian cinemaandonewhose influence has rewrittenthe rules of Hollywood cinema. From his years at the China Drama Academy under Master Yu Jim-Yuen,workingat a very young ageas a stuntmanin King Hus masterpieceA Touch of Zen, Chanhascontinuallyreinvented martial arts cinema and much beyond it.

Continued Nazzaro: A pure comic talent, he has absorbed the lessons of Buster Keaton and early cinema as his own, creating masterpieces that have captivated audiences around the world. With a sensibility worthy of the classic musical, he shaped an unprecedented poetics of the human body in motion.

His conclusion: In cinema, there is a before Jackie Chan and an after Jackie Chan.

Locarno called Chan an Asianmegastar, master filmmaker, and Hollywood mainstay beloved for action films thatbridged the gap between East and West, adding that he has for almost60years been one of the worlds most recognizable faces.

After beginningas a child actor in the 1960s, Chanfound success in1978withSnake in the Eagles ShadowandDrunken Master. Over the next decade,hisblend of kung-fu comedy was areliable box-office drawfor Golden Harvest, the legendary Hong Kong studio,with his audacious stunts andeasy-goingcharismadrawinglegions of adoring fans to cinemas, Locarno said.

By the 1990s, Chan was Asias highest-grossing action star, and a career in Hollywood followed.The buddy comedyRush Hour(1998) wouldcement Chansplace as a global superstar unlike any before him, said Locarno.

Chan has also worked behind the camera as the directorofthe likes ofPolice StoryandArmour of God(1986).

The Pardo alla Carriera is handed out with the support ofAscona-Locarno Tourism, thedestinationpartner of the Locarno festival.

Previous honorees include Francesco Rosi, Bruno Ganz, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Mario Adorf, Jane Birkin, Costa-Gavras, Tsai Ming-liang, and, last year, Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan.

The 78th Locarno festival runs Aug. 6-16.