Jet Li Lianjie (courtesy name Yangzhong; born 26 April 1963) is a martial artist, actor, and philanthropist. With a career spanning more than forty years, he is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese film stars and one of the greatest martial artists in the history of cinema. His film career in Asia is credited with reviving Hong Kong kungfu films as well as Shaolin Temple.
Li was trained as a wushu athlete at the Beijing Shichahai Sports School and went on to win multiple national championships with the Beijing Wushu Team between 1974 and 1979. After his retirement from the sport in 1979, he made his acting debut with the Hong Kong film Shaolin Temple (1982), a runaway success followed by two sequels in 1984 and 1986. Li established himself as a leading action star with the Once Upon a Time in China series (1991–1993), in which he portrayed Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung, followed by Born to Defence (1988), which is his directorial debut, Swordsman II (1992), Fong Sai-yuk (1993), Fist of Legend (1994), High Risk (1995), Black Mask (1996), and Hitman (1998).
Li made his Hollywood debut as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), followed by his first Hollywood leading role in Romeo Must Die (2000). He went on to star in international productions such as Luc Besson-produced films Kiss of the Dragon (2001) and Unleashed (2005). He returned to Asia with Hero (2002), followed by Fearless (2006) and The Warlords (2007). In 2008, he starred in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and The Forbidden Kingdom, which marked his first collaboration with fellow kungfu star Jackie Chan. From 2010 to 2014, he appeared in the first three of the action film series The Expendables.
As a philanthropist, Li founded One Foundation in 2007, which was registered in 2011 as the first private charitable fundraising organization in China. He also co-founded Taiji Zen, an online health program providing instruction in meditation and tai chi. Li topped Forbes's list of China's richest stars in 2004 and ranked 10th on the Forbes China Celebrity 100 list in 2004, 3rd in 2008, 6th in 2009, 24th in 2010, 8th in 2011, 22nd in 2012, and 41st in 2013. He was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in 2010.
Early life and martial arts career
Li was born in Beijing, and was the youngest of two boys and two girls. His ancestral home is in Shenyang, Liaoning. When he was two years old, his father died and his family then lived in poverty.
Li was eight when his talent for wushu was noticed as he practiced at a school summer course at the Beijing Sports and Exercise School (now known as Beijing Sport University). Renowned coaches Li Junfeng and Wu Bin made extra efforts to help the talented boy develop. Wu Bin even bought food for Li's family in order to boost Li's protein intake.
At the age of eleven, Li became a member of the 1974 China national wushu team which traveled to the United States during the time of the Ping-pong diplomacy. The group performed for American audiences in Hawaii, San Francisco, New York, and Washington, D.C., and additionally in Mexico City and Hong Kong. When the Chinese National Wushu Team 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!"
In November of the same year, the Beijing Wushu Team was founded and Li became a member. He became the national all-around champion four times from 1975 to 1979.
My winning first place caused quite a sensation because I was so young. I was 12 years old, and the other two medalists were in their mid- to late twenties. During the awards ceremony, as I stood on the top step of the podium, I was still shorter than the 2nd and 3rd place medalists. It must have been quite a sight.
Li is a master of several styles of wushu, especially changquan and fanziquan. He has also studied other arts including baguazhang, taijiquan, xingyiquan, zuiquan (drunken fist), yingzhaoquan (eagle claw), and tanglangquan (praying mantis fist). He also practiced weapons such as gunshu, daoshu, and jianshu as well as sanjiegun (three section staff).
Li retired from competitive wushu when he was only 18 due to a knee injury, but became an assistant coach of the Beijing Wushu team for a few years. Li's martial arts prowess would eventually contribute to his domestic and international fame.
In 2023, Li was inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum Hall of Fame.
The fame gained by his sports winnings led to a career as a martial arts film star, beginning in mainland China and then continuing into Hong Kong. Li acquired his screen name in 1982 in the Philippines when a publicity company thought his real name was too hard to pronounce. They likened his career to an aircraft, which likewise "takes-off" as quickly, so they placed the name Jet Li on the movie posters. Soon everybody was calling him by this new name, which was also based on the nickname, "Jet", given to him as a young student, due to his speed and grace when training with the Beijing Wushu team.
He made his film debut with the 1982 film Shaolin Temple. The film broke box office records in China, grossing CN¥161,578,014 (US$85,376,199) at the Chinese box office, from an estimated 500 million ticket sales. The sequel Kids From Shaolin sold an estimated 490 million tickets, making it 1984's highest-grossing film in China.
Some of his more famous Chinese films include:
The Shaolin Temple series (1, 2 and 3), which are considered to be the films which sparked the rebirth of the real Shaolin Temple in Dengfeng, China;
The Once Upon a Time in China series (Chinese title: Wong Fei Hung), about the legendary Chinese folk hero Master Wong Fei Hung.