Li was born Li Lian jie in Beijing, jet’s father died when he was two, leaving the family to struggle on its own, with Li being the youngest of two boys and two girls.
When Li was eight his talent for Wushu was noticed at a course at school, and he began his practice there. Li took part in the sport of Wushu in the non-sparring event. He began his Wushu on the Beijing Wushu Team, organized to perform martial arts forms during the All China Games.Li went on to win fifteen gold medals and one silver medal in Chinese wushu championships.
As a child he went to perform for President Richard Nixon in the United States, he was asked by Nixon to be his personal bodyguard. Li replied, “I don’t want to protect any individual. When I grow up, I want to defend my one billion Chinese countrymen! The name “Jet” was given to him as a young student, due to his speed and grace when training with the Beijing Wushu team.
The first breakthrough for him was when he was picked to take part in a movie known as The Shaolin Temple, his performance was so good that after the movie finished and aired, people would cue up for miles at his home just to see him. The movie was an overnight success and took hk$16 million and was no.4 at the box office, it made only 1 million less than Jackie Chans Dragon Lord. This led to Jet starring in the next 2 Shaolin Temple movies.
The Big Moment
A few years had passed and Li had done a few low budget movies like Dragon Fight and Born To Defend, but it wasn’t until Tsui Hark approached him to star as the legendary hero Wong Fei Hung in Once Upon A Time In China that Jet really made his mark. The movie was supposed to focus on Yuen Biao’s character but Hark changed this when the camera started rolling, and I bet Jet fans were glad of this because the movie was a massive hit and at the Hong Kong film awards the movie won best director, editing, choreographer and music score. This would lead to Jet starring in 4 more OUATIC films and high wire kung fu was once again making a name for itself.
Throughout the rest of the 90’s Jet starred in other movies such as Last Hero In China, Fong Sai Yuk and New Legend Of Shaolin but the biggest film of all and maybe one of his very best was the remake of Bruce Lee’s Fist Of Fury, with the title Fist Of Legend. It was directed by Gordon Chan and features action choreography by Yuen Woo Ping. The film’s setting is in Shanghai in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War as the city is occupied by Japanese forces. It is regarded as one of the best martial arts films of all time, and almost universally viewed as Jet Li’s best.
In 1998, he made his American film debut in Lethal Weapon 4 which was the first time he had ever played a villain in a film. He agreed to do Lethal Weapon 4 after the producer Joel Silver promised to give him the leading role in his next film, Romeo Must Die (2000) which was a box office hit. Li turned down Chow Yun-Fat’s role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) because he promised his wife that he would not make any films during her pregnancy.
He also turned down the role of Seraph in The Matrix trilogy, based on his belief that the role was not one which required his skills and that the films were iconic and stunning enough without adding his name to the cast list.
In 2001 he starred in another 2 Hollywood films called The One and Kiss Of The Dragon, both did ok at the box office, In 2002, the period martial arts epic film Hero was released in the Chinese market. This film was both a commercial and critical success and become the highest-grossing motion picture in Chinese history at the time.
Jet’s biggest film to cross over to Hollywood was the movie Fearless, he played Huo Yuanjia, the real life founder of Chin Woo Association, who reportedly defeated foreign boxers and Japanese martial artists in publicized events at a time when China’s power was seen as eroding. In 2008 he finally teamed up with the legend that is Jackie Chan for the movie Forbidden Kingdom, an american film which is based on the monkey king from the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West. Li also starred as the lead villain in the fantasy action film The Mummy Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor.
Jet has currently finished the big budget film called The Expendables starring and produced by Sly Stallone. Also is he making a movie called Ocean Paradise, which will be a drama and may actually signal the end of Jet Li’s Martial Arts Career and the start of his new found love for charity and dramas.
Jet Li - Expendables - But could this be Jet Li's last real action movie?
