Jackie Chan attends New York Asian Film Festival Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony at Walter Reade Theater on June 10 in New York City (GETTY)

It's a Sino-cinephile's dream. The New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) was held earlier this summer at Lincoln Center's Film Society featuring over 60 films, premieres, Q&As with directors and more. This year kicked off with a retrospective of Jackie Chan's action classics and the actor himself attended a red carpet event to kick off the celebration.

Dubbed the "Jackie Chan Experience", The Film Society of Lincoln Center, NYAFF, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York, and the Asia Society presented the Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award to the actor and presented the largest retrospective of his films ever held in North America.

"On the occasion of the release of Chan's 101st film, Chinese Zodiac (2012), the Film Society of Lincoln Center and New York Asian Film Festival will honor Jackie Chan, the director, and celebrate his 40-year-career in film. During that time, Chan has re-invented how action is filmed, with innovations in editing, choreography, and story-telling influencing filmmakers at home in Hong Kong, and overseas in Hollywood," festival organizers said in a statement.

In a Q&A with the audience, Chan said some of his successcould be attributed to the lengthy time allowed for film shooting. Chan said he spent many days with scriptwriters and crew trying to figure out how to connect his trademark action sequences with situational comedy.

"I would spend a month on set trying to figure out how to do something," Chan said. "In America, they don't allow you to do that. It's about money. In Asia, I go to the set, wrap, and go home. It's cheap."

Aaron Knapp, 28, who came to see a showing of Drunken Master 2 said he has been a fan of Jackie Chan since Rumble in the Bronx—the 1995 film which introduced most Americans to the kungfu star. The Drunken Master series, though, is his favorite, Knapp said.

Matt Hawkins, 36, also attending the showing of Drunken Master 2, said he had already seen the film but was looking forward to the NYAFF showing of the "original, unedited 35-mm print."

Chan's films have inspired a new generation of Americans to fall in love with kungfu culture. David Kaplan, 42, a New York martial arts instructor who came to the screening said Chan's abilities are "pretty real" and the "kungfu comes in all forms."

"I would say, yes, he has inspired me," Kaplan said.

Chinese films have had a special place in New York culture. In the 1970s, Bruce Lee's kungfu double features drew film lovers to theaters in Times Square, and influenced a generation of musicians and artists. The nineties brought Jackie Chan and sparked another wave of popularity of Asian films. And now, as China is projected to surpass the U.S. to become the world's largest box office with $2 billion in ticket sales, the Chinese film industry has limitless possibilities. An average of nine new screens open every day in the country, and experts agree China's film industry remains unsaturated.

Chinese filmmakers have also evolved to meet the growing market. When Hong Kong director Andrew Lau shot the first of the 15 Young and Dangerous films in 1996, he said he didn't bother applying for any film permits. The local police did not support the shooting and Lau used real gangsters from local triads for extras and crowd shots. Now, filming in Hong Kong is different, Lau said. The local police and government are more supportive of productions, but the move away from guerrilla-style shooting means more oversight and more regulations. Films are not as dark and edgy as the gangster films Lau made popular 20 years ago.

"We couldn't make something like Infernal Affairs anymore because it's about bad cops," Lau said. "Now, in this period, they are getting more open. The people who regulate the film industry are getting younger and more open-minded and we can do subject matter such as police corruption. I think it will change. We look forward to that."

Lau says he looks forward to doing more movies. The filmmaker is now joining forces with legendary film director Martin Scorsese on a new gangster-action project called Revenge of the Green Dragons. Scorsese won his first and only Oscar six years ago with an adaptation of Lau's Infernal Affairs.

"So many people say: 'You are the savior of the Hong Kong movie industry,' and I say, no, I just want to save myself," Lau said. "I try my best to shoot some good movies."

Festival Highlights

- World premiere of Hong Kong horror series Tales from the Dark Part 1 by Fruit Chan and Lee Chi Ngai and directed by Simon Yam.

- World premiere of the directors cut for Yan Yan Mak's The Great War. The Korean director attended the screening.

- A retrospective of legendary Korean character actor Ryoo Seung-Beom.

- 40th anniversary screening of the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon and a panel discussion on the relationship between kungfu and hip-hop.

- Gao Qunshu's run-and-gun cop drama Beijing Blues.

- North American premiere of Double Xposure, directed by Li Yu, one of China's female directors.

The author is a contributing writer to Beijing Review, living in New York City