Exit the dragon - Jet Li kicks back

Washington DC, July 1974. Two years have passed since President Nixon’s historic visit to China, and on the White House lawn a Chinese troupe is performing wushu for the benefit of the soon to be ex-President and assembled VIPs. Indeed, the end game of the Watergate scandal is in play, and the fatally wounded Nixon administration will not last through the summer. Be that as it may, among the Chinese performers present, there is an 11 year old boy from Beijing, by the name of Li Lianjie. Li is involved in a two man fight for the pleasure of Nixon and Kissinger. That boy would later be known as Jet Li.

Li is to wushu (martial arts with the emphasis on formal competition), what Bruce Lee was to gongfu (martial arts with the emphasis on ‘real’ fighting). He began studying wushu in the 1970s, at the age of eight, at Beijing’s state run Martial Arts Academy. From there, he went on to become China’s most bankable, and admired, male movie star, at home and abroad.

In large part, because Li has maintained his integrity, no one has ever accused him of selling out. His most recent film, Fearless, topped the Chinese box office earlier this year, dispatching the heavyweight challenge of King Kong with the slickest of wushu maneuvers. A feat that Li finds easy to explain. “Why does the Chinese audience love Jet Li?” he asks. “Because I’m a real martial artist. I was national martial arts champion five years in a row. And they like my personality and my strong philosophy: share the love, share the life – for the country.”
Indeed, Li’s record – five national championships in a row spanning 1974-79 has never been bettered – and is all the more impressive in view of his youth. He started competing in adult contests from the tender age of 12. That said, the actor doesn’t remember actually choosing wushu as way of life; rather he was plucked out of school at an early age by state talent scouts. But he took to the spartan training regime like a duck to water, and received a thorough grounding in the martial arts, and also dance.

In 1979, Li retired as an athlete, just short of his 18th birthday. He might have pursued a career in coaching, dining out for the rest of his life on tales of past glories (as a child he also performed for Zhou Enlai, performing high kicks in the Great Hall of the People). Instead, as China cautiously opened up in the early 80s, new opportunities emerged for an individual of his obvious talent. And Li chose to strike out on a whole new path.

“I was the first martial artist in China to make films,” Li says. And his films were an immediate success. His debut performance in Shaolin Temple (1982), topped the box office in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Korea, and he soon became a favorite with fans, especially in the SAR. International attention came later, with Li’s 1998 Hollywood film debut in Lethal Weapon 4. The timing was good: Chinese action cinema was about to go mainstream, and Li was well positioned to lead the charge. It’s no surprise then that his role in Hero (2004) contributed greatly to the film’s topping the US box office on its opening weekend, the first Mandarin language film ever to do so.

Yet at 43, Li seems about to give it all up. Of late, his attitude towards wushu, which has shaped his life for the past three and half decades, has changed. “It was only when I reached my 30s that I started to think about the deeper meaning of martial art, and about ways of using martial arts to improve lives – my own and those around me. I want to show that violence is not the only solution to problems.”

In part, Li attributes his new spirituality to an encounter with mortality. In 2004, while on a Christmas holiday with his family in the Maldives, the biggest tsunami in living memory devastated Southeast Asia. For a time, it appeared that Li had become of the tens of thousands of victims. He was not, of course, a fact which was trumpeted in the media: ‘Jet Li Found Alive’ ran one headline in a Chinese newspaper. Still, the experience left him shaken – and also moved by the selflessness of the relief effort in which he played a part.

Buddhism, too, has had a strong influence on Li in recent years, and affected the way he sees his career. “In the past, my understanding of martial arts came from the perspective of yin and yang – external oppositions, that different countries and cultures have opposing points of view. Since I have converted to Buddhism, I have learnt that the biggest enemy is myself; the threat comes from within, not from outside,” he says.

“Look at the Middle East,” he elaborates. “The cycle of revenge has continued there for 2000 years, and still hasn’t been solved. But the enemy is within; they can’t get beyond their pain. In the world, you have to share your love.”
This compassionate view deeply informs Li’s most recent film, Fearless, in which he starred, and produced. Currently enjoying healthy box office returns in the United States, the movie concerns Huo Yuanjia, a professional fighter who, in the years following the Boxer Rebellion, conquers his personal demons to emerge as a powerful figure of Chinese nationalism.

“My character in Fearless is very close to my experiences in real life,” says Li. “As a Buddhist, I want to share my life experiences, particularly with a younger audience. China’s economy has been growing fast; people’s lives are much better than in the past. Yet despite this, a quarter of a million people committed suicide in 2003. Fearless is about encouraging young people to believe in themselves.”
The Fearless publicity campaign made much of the fact that it would be Jet Li’s last martial arts outing – a claim repeated in the hype accompanying the movie’s current European release. In person, however, Li seems less than certain. He hints that his retirement all depends on how one defines ‘martial arts’. “I have retired from traditional martial arts’ movies,” he says. “I will still make action movies though, and maybe the director will use gong fu to tell a story sometimes.”

In any case, for now Li is concentrating his efforts on good works. “I’ve donated money – millions – to hospitals and temples, to schools and to the poor,” he says. In January, the Red Cross Society of China appointed him a ‘philanthropic ambassador’, recognizing his efforts to raise awareness of mental health issues among young people. On behalf of the Red Cross, he delivered a series of lectures at universities across China (including one at Shanghai’s Fudan), all of which received heavy coverage in the Chinese media.

Li has also established his own charity, the ONE Foundation, an idea that came of his experience on the scene of the Southeast Asia tsunami. On his website, he speculates that if ten per cent of the world’s population contributes just one dollar each [about USD 600,000,000] then ONE could provide immediate and long-term support in the aftermath of any large-scale natural disasters. Citing the experience of his own children, he has a special interest in helping survivors deal with post-disaster trauma.

For Li, the tsunami also helped underline the importance of family. The Li family’s principal residence is here in Shanghai, though he stipulates that the location is purely for practical reasons.

“Yes, my main house is in Shanghai,” he says. “It’s a good place to live, but it’s not somewhere I miss when I’m abroad. You know, I was born in Beijing. I traveled a lot when I was little; I have lived in Hong Kong, in the US and Europe. I live in Shanghai because my wife is Shanghainese – she’s the one who loves Shanghai.”

That said, he admits the city has become a more attractive location for filmmaking. “The environment for making movies is better than before. We shot 80 per cent of Fearless in Shanghai; I have made five or six movies in Beijing, but that was the first time I’d made a movie in Shanghai. The locations are attractive here; also Shanghai is international, and everything is much cheaper than in Hong Kong.”
While Li is less than enamored with Shanghai, his love of action movies appears as constant as ever, despite his announced retirement. His next movie will be Rogue, filmed in Vancouver and featuring Li as an assassin who has ignited a bloody crime war between rival Asian mobs. Jason Statham (Transporter) plays an FBI agent determined to bring down Li after his partner is murdered.

And then? Well, the day prior to our interview, a post on the official Jackie Chan website announced the possibility of a Jet Li/Jackie Chan collaboration. “It may happen, although nothing has been decided,” says Li. “Jackie and I are close friends – we’ve worked together for ten years. Ultimately the audience is the boss; if there is a demand for the film then it will happen.”

In fact, the plan is to sound out industry opinion at the Cannes Film Festival. No script has been finalized, but it is fair to say the film will involve martial arts. Li’s name has also been linked to the latest Yuen Woo-ping project, The Great Wall, about Central China’s struggle with the ancient Xiongnu minority, known as the Huns in the West, following the death of Emperor Qin Shihuang. An experienced director, as well as being the choreographic talent behind The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, Yuen promises fight scenes will comprise two thirds of this latest project.

In other words, like Mark Twain’s death, rumors of Jet Li’s retirement may have been exaggerated. In any case, it’s all a far cry from the little boy chosen to punch for Nixon and his retinue on the White House lawn. But China, too, is a far cry from the world of 1974. This, perhaps, is the root of Li’s enduring appeal; he and his audience have grown up together – and he’s still kicking ass for his country. “I’ve been making movies for 26 years,” says Li, “and after all this time, the Chinese audience still loves Jet Li.”

Jet Li’s wushu troupe visited the White House on July 12th, 1974. The visit, Nixon said, symbolized the new friendship between China and the United States. The President ended his remarks that day with a reference to the three youngest members of the troupe, which included the 11 year-old Li. “If I ever need a bodyguard,” he joked, “I will just take [you] three with me.” But by that stage even Jet Li couldn’t save Richard Nixon – he resigned from office on August 9th, less than four weeks later.