Jet Liis one of the world’s mostacclaimed martial arts movie stars. The Chinese-born martial artist has been working for over 40 years and has starred in the lead role in movies that have grossed well over 1.1 billion worldwide. Before acting, Li won five men’s national championships in wushu before he finally moved on to movies, making hisfilm debut inShaolin Templein 1982. After that, he went on to become Asia’s most successful martial arts action hero before finally making his move to Hollywood.
His Hollywood career all started with one of the most successful action franchises of its era when he took therole of a villain inLethal Weapon 4. However,Jet Li quickly moved on to starring roles in American martial arts action movies, and he continued to develop his reputation as one of the best international action stars in the world. He has mostly semi-retired from acting other than smaller roles that no longer require him to perform stunts, which marks the end of an era for Jet Li fans.
Most actors get their start in something smaller and then work their way up to bigger roles as they prove themselves. However, thanks toJet Li’s athletic past and martial arts background, he was propelled right into the lead role in his first movie, and it was a massive success. The film wasShaolin Temple, and it was one of the first major collaborations between Hong Kong and China with a mainland Chinese cast shot in China. This is what made the film such a success, asJet Li became the first star of this new eraof Asian filmmaking.
The film is based on the Shaolin Monastery and utilizes Shaolin Kung Fu. When adjusted for inflation,Shaolin Templeis one of the highest-grossing Chinese films in history, proving Jet Li’s marketability. Li stars as a young man tormented by an evil general who learns martial arts at the Shaolin Temple so he can avenge his father’s death. The film made the actual Shaolin Temple a major tourist destination (viaSouth China Morning Post).
While Jet Li was a star from the start of his career, he had his biggest breakout performance in the biographical martial arts movieOnce Upon a Time in China. Jet Li stars in this film as themartial arts master and folk hero Wong Fei-hung.The film was the start of one of Asia’s most successful franchisesin history, with six movies and a TV series. Jet Li starred as Wong in the first three movies of the series, and returned for the sixth.
The first two films, with Jet Li in the lead role, are two of the most successful and influential Asian movies of all time, praised for both the action fight scenes and the portrayal of Chinese nationalism. This was also one of the best examples of Jet Li’s wushu filmmaking fighting style, and it was this movie that helped usher in that cinematic fighting form for the next decade-plus of martial arts films.
Almost every martial arts actor working today owes their careers to Bruce Lee. In 1994,Jet Li starred as Chen Zhen in a remake of the Bruce Lee epic martial arts filmFist of Fury. While it is always risky to remake a movie that starred a legend in the genre, Jet Li was already big enough by this time that most fans accepted it, and he was a great enough martial artist to hold his own even when compared to the master.
The movie follows Chen Zhen as he investigates the death of his old master, Huo Yuanjia, at the hands of Imperial Japanese occupation forces. The movie was a huge hit and ended up as one of Jet Li’s best performances, sitting at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and receiving an English-dubbed version that helped Li’s smooth transition to American cinema in the coming years.
In 1998, Jet Li made his jump to American cinema and did so in one of the most successful action franchises. Jet Li took on the villain role of Wah Sing Ku inLethal Weapon 4.While this ended up as the end of the franchise and lacks a lot of the heart of the original film,Jet Li does breathe new life into the series thanks to his martial arts masteryand the realistic danger that he brings with only his hands and feet.
The film sees Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Murtaugh (Danny Glover) back in action when a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring is discovered, with Jet Li playing a high-ranking Triad member. This ended up as the highest-grossing movie in the franchise, and Jet Li’s appearance likely played a role in that. This was also the start of his impressive Hollywood career, where he remained a leading man in American action movies for over a decade.
Jet Li spent much of his early career starring in historical epics and regular martial arts action movies. However, in 2001, he took on a role in a more American-flavored action movie. InThe One,Jet Li traded in his regular martial arts fighting skills for a science fiction movie about the multiverse, whereinterdimensional travel allowed his character to move between realities to kill other versions of himself. Of course, he did this mostly using martial arts fighting skills.
This also allowed Li to team with Jason Statham.
Jet Li plays both a police officer and the murderous agent in this movie, which allows the actor a chance to fight himself in some creatively edited martial arts action. This also allowed Li to team with Jason Statham in a fun action hero team-up film to stop the killer before he murders all his variants to become an almost unstoppable “The One.” While not up to par with Li’s previous movies, it allowed him to have some fun.
A year after teaming with Jason Statham in a sci-fi action thriller, Jet Li returned to historical epics with one of the best wuxia films of the 2000s. Following the incredible success ofCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,Li brought his skills to a wuxia movie calledHero,where the martial artist played a nameless man who was part of a group of assassins setting out to kill the King of Qin to prevent the unification of China.
Based on a real-life historical incident, Jet Li teamed with Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen, and Zhang Ziyi in a dizzying display of wuxia fighting and colorful set design for what was one of the 2000s most beautiful films. It received an Oscar nomination and ended up as the first Chinese-language film to ever hit number one at the American box office.
In 2005, Jet Li starred in another fast-paced American martial arts movie, this time by writer Luc Besson and action director Louis Leterrier. UnlikeThe One, this was more of a straight action movie, although it did have one fantastical element.Li is Danny, a brutal fighter kept as an “attack dog"by a loan shark who uses a metal collar to control him. When the collar is off, Danny is untethered and can beat and kill any number of enemies.
However, this is as much a drama as it is an action movie, because Danny gets free when he thinks his controller has died, meets a small family, and learns how to become a peaceful part of society. However, when his former controller returns, he has to fight again to save his newfound family. It received positive reviews and many critics call it Jet Li’s best American movie as a leading man.
In 2007, Jet Li said goodbye to the movies that he made for almost his entire career. Over a decade after he helped revolutionize martial arts films with wushu fighting, Li starred in his last film that used that fighting style, marking an end to an era. Directed by Ronny Yu,Jet Li plays real-life Chinese martial artist Huo Yuanjia, a man who publicly challenged martial artists from other countries to highly publicized fights in the early 1900s.
It was Huo’s fighting, and winning, that helped bring the country some pride and nationalism.
The film tells the life story of Huo Yunajia, while also showing how China struggled to find its sense of identity as the country began to change and dynasties fell. It was Huo’s fighting, and winning, that helped bring the country some pride and nationalism in an era before the birth of the Republic of China. The film received mostly positive reviews and went on to win several Hong Kong film awards.
While Jet Li had finished making wushu films, he hadn’t finished making martial arts films yet. In 2008, martial arts movie fans got a dream pairing whenJet Li teamed with Jackie Chanfor the first and only time inThe Forbidden Kingdom.While not a wushu movie, it did utilize the wuxia filmmaking technique used inHeroand similar movies.Loosely based on the novelJourney to the West,this film is a fantasy release about a modern-day American teen sent back in time to ancient China.
Jackie Chan plays Lu Yan, an official of the Kang Dynasty, while Jet Li plays Sun Wukong, the mythical Monkey King from theJourney to the Westnovel. The film received mixed to positive reviews, and allowed two ofthe best martial arts actorsof the last two decades to team up for the first time, much to the audience’s delight.
In 2010, Jet Li joined another franchise after finding success in several others before coming to America. However, he was only a part of the large ensemble cast inThe Expendables.In this film series, Sylvester Stallone leads the way as Barney Ross, a man who leads a team of mercenaries into action, usually to stop bad guys and save the world. Joining him are the biggest action movie actors of the previous three decades, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis.
Jet Li is there as Yin Yang, and he is joined by Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, and in later movies by Jean-Claude Van Damme, Terry Crews, Wesley Snipes, and more. It was a huge deal for fans of 80s and 90s action movies, and Jet Li was the perfect choice to represent the martial arts subgenre of those beloved films. While his presence lessened in the sequels, the first movie gave fans a chance to seeJet Liand Dolph Lundgren square off for the first time.
