linguistic:voice_change
1999–2007: Fame in Hollywood and dramatization

In 1998, Chan released his final film for Golden Harvest, Who Am I?. After leaving Golden Harvest in 1999, he produced and starred alongside Shu Qi in Gorgeous, a romantic comedy that focused on personal relationships and featured only a few martial arts sequences. Although Chan had left Golden Harvest in 1999, the company continued to produce and distribute for two of his films, Gorgeous (1999) and The Accidental Spy (2001). Chan then helped create a PlayStation game in 2000 called Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, to which he lent his voice and performed the motion capture. He continued his Hollywood success in 2000 when he teamed up with Owen Wilson in the Western action comedy Shanghai Noon. A sequel, Shanghai Knights followed in 2003 and also featured his first on-screen fight scene with Donnie Yen. He reunited with Chris Tucker for Rush Hour 2 (2001), which was an even bigger success than the original, grossing $347 million worldwide. Chan experimented with the use of special effects and wirework for the fight scenes in his next two Hollywood films, The Tuxedo (2002) and The Medallion (2003), which were not as successful critically or commercially. In 2004, he teamed up with Steve Coogan in Around the World in 80 Days, loosely based on Jules Verne 's novel of the same name. In 2004, film scholar Andrew Willis stated that Chan was "perhaps" the "most recognized star in the world".

Despite the success of the Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon films, Chan became frustrated with Hollywood over the limited range of roles and lack of control over the filmmaking process. In response to Golden Harvest's withdrawal from the film industry in 2003, Chan started his own film production company, JCE Movies Limited (Jackie Chan Emperor Movies Limited) in association with Emperor Multimedia Group (EMG). His films have since featured an increasing number of dramatic scenes while continuing to succeed at the box office; examples include New Police Story (2004), The Myth (2005) and the hit film Rob-B-Hood (2006).

Chan's next release was the third instalment in the Rush Hour film series directed by Brett Ratner: Rush Hour 3 in August 2007. It grossed US$255 million. However, it was a disappointment in Hong Kong, grossing only HK$3.5 million during its opening weekend.