Jet Li

Wushu in Beijing

Jet Li was born Li Lianjie on 26 April 1963 in Beijing. Spotted at eight during a summer course, he joined the Shichahai sports school and trained under coach Wu Bin. His discipline was competition wushu forms, or taolu: long fist (changquan), broadsword, spear and straight sword. Judges score speed, precision and power in each routine.

With the Beijing team he won national titles from 1974 to 1979 and was several times China's all-around champion, the event that adds up scores across several forms (four or five titles, depending on the source). In 1974, aged 11, he toured the United States with the Chinese wushu delegation in the wake of ping-pong diplomacy; the troupe performed in Washington for President Richard Nixon. He left competition in the late 1970s, still in his teens.

From Shaolin Temple to Wong Fei-hung

Shaolin Temple (1982), shot in mainland China and partly at the Shaolin monastery itself, was his first film. Admissions in China ran into the hundreds of millions, and the film revived interest in the monastery. Around this time he took the screen name Jet Li. Two sequels followed, Kids from Shaolin (1984) and Martial Arts of Shaolin (1986). He directed Born to Defence (1988), his only film behind the camera.

The breakthrough came in Hong Kong. In Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China (1991) he plays Wong Fei-hung, the physician and hung gar master of the late Qing era. He returned to the role in 1992 and 1993, then in 1997 for Once Upon a Time in China and America. From 1992 to 1994 came his busiest run: Swordsman II, Fong Sai-yuk and its sequel, Yuen Woo-ping's Tai Chi Master, Kung Fu Cult Master and Last Hero in China, often as producer too. Fist of Legend (1994), choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping, takes up Chen Zhen, Bruce Lee's character in Fist of Fury; its harder, less wire-driven fights are among the most quoted in the genre.

Hollywood and the big epics

Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) gave him his first English-language part, the villain Wah Sing Ku. Romeo Must Die (2000) was a box-office hit, followed by The One (2001). With Luc Besson producing, he shot Kiss of the Dragon (2001) in Paris and Louis Leterrier's Unleashed (2005), a more dramatic role as a man raised to fight like a dog.

Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), in which he plays Nameless, was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign language film and became the highest-grossing Chinese film at the time. In Ronny Yu's Fearless (2006) he plays Huo Yuanjia, founder of the Jingwu athletic association, and he described the film as the close of his career as a martial arts star. Peter Chan's The Warlords (2007) won him the Hong Kong Film Award for best actor.

He then shared the screen with Jackie Chan for the first time in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), played Yin Yang in all three Expendables films (2010, 2012, 2014), reunited with Tsui Hark for Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011) and played the Emperor in Disney's Mulan (2020).

Screen style and legacy

On screen Jet Li keeps the hallmarks of competition wushu: low stances, quick footwork, clean forms and precise handling of broadsword, spear and staff. Where Jackie Chan relies on stunts and comedy, he plays it straight and lets the technique speak. His Hong Kong films make heavy use of wires; Fist of Legend and Unleashed show a tighter, close-quarters style.

In 2011 he co-founded Taiji Zen with Jack Ma, combining tai chi and meditation in classes and online programmes. The Martial Arts History Museum inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2023.