BRET LOVE TALKS TO JET LI ABOUT HIS COLLABORATION WITH JACKIE CHAN AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF WUSHU
Jet Li’s new fi lm has martial arts
movie fans foaming at the mouth.
The Forbidden Kingdom, based
on the same fable as the TV show
Monkey, is the eagerly awaited
project that pairs Li with Jackie Chan.
“I think a lot of people are talking about the new Jet Li and Jackie Chan movie,” Li acknowledges with a confi dent grin. “This was an American production, but the location is in Heng Dian, China.” The story follows a Kung Fu-obsessed American teen who fi nds a legendary weapon and embarks upon an adventure to China, where he joins forces with a band of martial arts warriors to help free Li, who plays the imprisoned Monkey King.
“I have met Jackie many times before, and many people thought we were natural enemies, but I thought he was a cool bloke and looked forward to working with him. We’d been talking about making a movie together for 15 years, and for ages it was rumors, rumors, rumors. But now it’s true!”
Recently though, much-loved Li, one
of the biggest Asian actors in Hollywood,
has been talking about moving away from
the action genre. “I think I have proved
my ability in this fi eld, and it doesn’t make
sense for me to continue for another fi ve
or 10 years. 2006’s Fearless [which told
the story of Huo Yuanjia, the founder
and spiritual guru of the Jin Wu Sports Federation] was the end of my life as a
martial arts star. In the past we did a lot of
action fi lms focused more on the fi ght,” he
explains. “That movie gave me the room
to show my beliefs about the martial arts
- not just the physical part, but the mental
philosophy and internal side. Everything
I wanted to say about Wushu’s true
meaning, I said in that fi lm. Remember, I
stepped into the martial arts movie world
when I was only 16.”
He looks like he’s thrown off the action hero mantle when you meet him too. Dressed in a black t-shirt and jacket, grey cargo pants and New Balance speakers, wearing a comfortable smile that makes him seem much younger than his 45 years, the 5′6″ tall actor looks about as threatening as a baby panda. Yet as anyone who’s seen one of his nearly 40 fi lms (or witnessed his previous career as a fi ve-time Wushu world champion) will attest - appearances can be deceiving.
Born Li Lian Jie in 1963, he began
training at the Beijing Wushu Academy
at the age of eight, winning his fi rst Gold
medal in the Chinese championships
when he was just 11 (his prize was a trip to
Washington DC, to meet President Richard
Nixon). He became a coach on the national
team when he was a teen, and by 1982 had
already starred in his fi rst fi lm, Shaolin Si
(The Shaolin Temple), which was widely
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Sharon credited with launching the 1980s Kung Fu film boom. By the time he moved to Hong Kong to star in popular action film franchises such as Once Upon A Time In China and The Legend, Li was well on his way to becoming the hottest martial arts film star since Jackie Chan.
“Martial arts is my life. Everything I know is from martial arts philosophy,” he insists. “We’ve made a lot of action movies, and usually people focus on the fighting – physical fighting, violence against violence. That’s the only message you would get out of it. A lot of people only talk about war and fighting, and nobody talks about stopping.”
Li acknowledges that it took a while for him to understand the spirituality that lies at the heart of the martial arts.
“In the beginning, like the first three to five years, I only knew the physical part,” he admits. “But after a while, you think about life… why do men complain about women, and women complain about men? They shouldn’t complain, they should teach. It’s like the yin and yang philosophy – they each have their own opinion, and that’s what causes them to fight. Starting from there, you need to learn. Many are learning martial arts, and a lot of teachers are teaching that.”
Of course, the martial arts world isn’t the only realm in which a man’s primal urges can overwhelm his soul and spirit if he isn’t careful. Hollywood history is littered with stories of actors who achieved too much success too soon and let their egos and appetites overtake common sense. And Li acknowledges that film stardom brought its own unique set of challenges.
“One day I made a movie and became a well-known actor in Asia,” he says, “then suddenly a lot of people hang on to you and want to make money, and they try to make you selfish. It becomes an ego thing. If you don’t know how to control that part, you will lose. You will make a mistake, because you don’t want to listen to your mom, or you ignore your coach. [It becomes about], ‘I want to do this, I want to do that.’”
What Jet Li wanted to do was conquer the US market, and his breakthrough came as the bad guy in 1998’s Lethal Weapon 4, which made him a full-fledged international star after appearing alongside rapper DMX in the crime thrillers Romeo Must Die (2000) and Cradle 2 the Grave (2003). Suddenly his asking price rose to over USD5 million per film, but he soon noticed the differences between the Asian and American approaches to filmmaking.
“The culture is different in that the American people want love and warmth in their films, and the Chinese don’t.
In China,” he adds, “we can control the schedule, money, everything. With [martial arts] movies, if we have 90 days to shoot, there may be 60 days of fighting. In the US, with Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 The Grave, we had only four days of fighting. Hollywood has a stronger movie industry and is very professional. They have their own way of making classic or commercial movies and know how to reach worldwide audiences, while the Chinese have their own way, and different genres. Basically, it’s a different culture and a different system.”
Nonetheless, the Hollywood system is one that this martial arts expert has been able to navigate smoothly over the past 10 years. Once he had established himself in the US as a bankable lead actor, Li began to seek out more serious and challenging roles. First up was Hero, the Oscar-nominated historical epic in which he starred as a warrior who defeats three assassins attempting to murder the most powerful warlord in pre-unified China. Then, in Luc Besson’s Unleashed, he largely traded action for dramatic intrigue as a man who is raised like a dog and escapes from his captor to start a new life with a mentor (Morgan Freeman) who helps him discover his human essence.
According to Li, as a Buddhist opposed to violence, the latter film was close to his heart, and was part of a bigger agenda to show he had more range as an actor than his previous projects had allowed him to display. “If you have to do something different, you need to prove yourself to the studios,” he insists. “No one wants to make a movie about our beliefs. They only want to focus in on the violence. In Unleashed, my character was like a dog with no feelings, and they only wanted him to fight. At the end of the movie, Morgan Freeman brings him back to normality. I wanted to explore a deeper angle to show that violence is not the only solution.”
But despite insisting that Fearless would be his last Wushu film, Li’s calendar has been busier than ever lately, with two major Hollywood films slated for release in 2008. In August, he stars opposite Brendan Fraser in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third film in the successful action/ adventure franchise. And later this year, rumor has it he’ll be starring alongside Natalie Portman in Snow & the Seven, an inventive re-telling of Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs set in China.
As for what types of films he would like to do in the future, Li admits he’s open to the idea of a cop drama or perhaps even something totally different like a romantic comedy. However, he laments: “No studio offers me those roles. I never have a chance to prove to the studios that I can make a movie without action. Every actor wants to change, but in the movie business no one will give you the opportunity to make that film. You just have to try and make it yourself.”
INTERESTED IN MARTIAL ARTS IN THE PHILIPPINES?
Chef Chris, manager at martial arts school Yaw-Yan Ardigma Makati ógives us some insider tips
“TV’s coverage of sporting events like the Ultimate Fighting Championship and local events such as Universal Reality Combat Championship have increased the popularity of martial arts. It’s a great source of exercise and builds self-confidence and discipline, furthermore it’s reasonably priced, so affordable for all.
“The style of martial arts we teach, Yaw-Yan, is the ‘True Philippine’ martial art, created by Grand Master Napelion Fernandez in 1973 to fit Filipino size and culture. Yaw-Yan is faster and more powerful than other marital arts as it utilizes the strength of opponents. It’s called ‘non-resistant’, meaning no blocking is involved, it just redirects your opponent’s energy. It’s suitable for everyone.
Find us at 4008 Yague Street Pasong Tamo Makati, tel (2) 870 4750, www.Yaw-yan.com”
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