A Little About Jet Li
Jet Li is a Chinese martial artist and an international actor, whose birth name is Li Lian Jie. He was a wushu, or Chinese martial arts, champion until he retired at 17, and it was under training in wushu that his coach called him "Jet" for his speed and grace.
Jet Li was born on April 26, 1963 in Beijing, China. His father died when he was two years old, and being the youngest of five siblings, was overprotected by his mother. Nevertheless, she sent him, at the age of eight, to Beijing Sports and Exercises School, where he trained in wushu. As a member of the Beijing Wushu Team, he competed in wushu championships in the All China Games, also called China's Olympics, and accumulated fifteen gold medals and one silver medal.
As a martial arts child prodigy, Jet Li was famous among his Chinese countrymen. He even earned praises not only from leaders of his country like Premier Zhou Enlai, but from the United States President Richard Nixon as well, when he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the US as Sino-American relations opened up.
Undoubtedly, he is a master of several styles of wushu, which is both a full-contact and an exhibition international sport created from traditional Chinese martial arts. In particular, he is a master of the Northern Longfist, a type of Kung Fu, because his training was focused on Northern Shaolin types. He is also a master of Rotating or Tumbling Fist, which is a Chinese martial art that emphasizes offense and defense with the hands. He also learned Eagle Claw Fist, a style of martial art known for a system of pressure point strikes , joint locks, takedowns, and gripping techniques.
Other martial arts he experienced are Praying Mantis Fist and Drunken Fist, as well as Taichi, Shape Intent Fist and Eight Trigram Palm. He is also an expert in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, in which he is a 3rd degree blackbelt.
He is also skilled in straight sword and staff, which are among wushu's main weapons. Other weapons he has mastered are three sectional staff , the broadsword and many more. Having acquired so much fame from his success in sports, Jet Li was only a step away to making his debut at a very young age as a martial arts star in the film Shaolin Temple. The first Hong Kong production filmed in the mainland China in 1982, Shaolin Temple gave him his screen name, when publicity posters in the Philippines carried his nickname "Jet" because his real name was too hard to pronounce. "Jet" was chosen to liken the take-off of his career to that of a jet aircraft, which takes off quickly.
His debut film, followed by two more in the series, was so successful that they became instrumental in the rebirth of the Shaolin Temple, which really exists in Dengfeng, China.
He also starred in another famous series, Once Upon a Time in China (1991). In 1994, he starred in Fist of Legend, which was a remake of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury. As to American films, he had his debut in 1998 as a villain in Lethal Weapons 4, then in a leading role in the box office hit Romeo Must Die in 2000. He starred many other successful films, and he continued his acting career into 2009 when he played the role of a mercenary in a star-studded film The Expendables. As an actor that excels in the martial-arts cinema, Jet Li's achievements have placed him in the league of brilliant Chinese martial-arts stars in the likes of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.
The following is one of my favorite fight scenes with him from the movie "Fearless"...
Back to "Homepage" from "Jet Li" page
|
