The actor-director-producer was also in LA to replace his hand- and footprints in cement at Hollywood's Chinese Theatre, after his previous prints from 1997 were lost.

Although representatives of the newly named TCL Chinese Theatre, previously Grauman's Chinese Theatre, said they did not know when the prints vanished, they said they were sure the slab was not stolen. Slabs are often changed to make room for new entries in the collection.

In New York, the Chinese filmmaker said he hopes to leverage his fame for more opportunities to educate audiences through his films.

"I always tell my friends that as a director, a producer and an actor, we have a responsibility to the world, to society," Chan said. "We have to be very careful about what kind of films we make because people learn from films."

Chan said he really became aware of his power to influence viewers when he was in a small village in South Africa, where he was shooting the 1998 film Who Am I? While out for a run, a group of roughly 100 children followed, karate chopping the air and stumbling around like Chan's character in his 1978 film Drunken Master.

"I said to myself, ‘I have to be very careful,' because so many people learn from me," Chan said. "I wonder, why do I teach people to drink and fight?"

He said he wants to shed fighting onscreen to focus more on drama with substance.

"I don't want to do just action or comedy anymore," Chan said. "I want to talk about world problems [in my films] and how we can together solve these problems."