Jet Li
Jet Li (Traditional Chinese: 李連杰, Simplified Chinese: 李连杰, Gwohngdongwa pengyam: Ley5 Lin4 Git6 pinyin Lǐ Liánjié, born April 26 1963) is a martial artist and film actor.
He won the Chinese Wushu national championship five times, which eventually lead to a career as a martial arts movie star, first in mainland China, then in Hong Kong and now in Hollywood. He has made many movies in Hong Kong over the years. His début in Hollywood was in Lethal Weapon 4 as a villain. His first leading role in a Hollywood movie was in Romeo Must Die. After that came Kiss of the Dragon, The One premièred in North America on November 2, 2001, and Cradle 2 the Grave premièred in North America on February 28, 2003. His latest movie to premièr in North America is Hero (Shaolin Temple series (1, 2 and 3) - the films that introduced him; the Wong Fei Hung), about the semi-legendary Chinese folk hero; Fist of Legend, which was essentially a remake of Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury and the Fong Sai Yuk films, about another Chinese folk hero. He is very athleticly coordinated and most of the stunts performed is his movies are performed by himself.
Jet Li starred in 1995's 鼠膽龍威 (Shǔdǎn Lóngwèi, literally, "Courage of a Mouse and Power of a Dragon"). The movie, known in the US as either High Risk or Meltdown, portrays Jet Li as a cop who becomes disillusioned after his son is murdered by crimelords. Along the way, he pairs up with wacky sell-out actor Frankie (played by Jacky Cheung), and proceeds to engage in massively violent battles in a high-rise building. Note the fact that such a "no-talent" kung-fu actor was played by a man whose name rings close to that of Jackie Chan's was entirely intentional. While the movie was a stunning action comedic success, Jackie Chan remains angered to this day about what he considers to be a "parody" of his talents.
See also: Cinema of China
