Jackie Chan decides to gives action movies the boot at 58

The actor, 58, told a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival: “The world is too violent now. I love fighting but I hate violence.”

The Hong Kong-born Chinese stuntman has brought his latest offering, Chinese Zodiac, to the festival along with some of the cast.

The action adventure, which also features Laura Weissbecker and Kwon Sang Woo, centres on JC, a globe-trotting soldier of fortune who is hired by shady antiques dealers to track down six missing bronze animal heads.

Chan began his career as a stuntman working alongside his idol Bruce Lee in the films Fists of Fury (1972) and Enter the Dragon (1973).

He has appeared in more than 100 movies, doing all of his own stunts and breaking almost every bone in his body.

At yesterday’s press conference, Chan said he wanted his fans to know the was “not just about fighting”. He added: “I don’t just want to be an action star, I want to be a true actor.

His latest film is due to be released in December. “This is my last action film,” Chan said. “I tell you, I’m not young any more.”

In another development, it emerged in Cannes that Liam Neeson is to star in the long-awaited A Walk Among the Tombstones, a mystery based on a popular crime novel. The film is being adapted from the book of the same name in the Lawrence Block series.

Neeson will play Matt Scudder an ex-New York policeman and unlicensed private detective who is hired to find the kidnapped wife of a drug dealer.

Scudder was previously played by Jeff Bridges in the 1986 adaptation 8 Million Ways to Die.

Meanwhile, DCI Banks star Stephen Tompkinson boarded a yacht today to promote his first lead film role in a gritty crime thriller.

The television favourite climbed aboard the boat at the harbourside in Cannes, where the 65th film festival is taking place, to drum up international sales for British-made Harrigan, which will premiere in the UK this autumn. He said: “This is my first time in Cannes and it’s fantastic, very glamorous.”