How Jet powered to the top
Jet Li burst on to the Hollywood scene in 1998 in Lethal Weapon 4, in which he had the pleasure of kicking and beating Mel Gibson to a pulp.
Li didn't win the fight but captured the attention of Hollywood producers, who chased him with their cheque books. He was paid $2.4 million for his next film Romeo Must Die and $5 million for the lead role in Kiss of the Dragon, which he co-wrote with Luc Besson. He also starred in the movie The One.
This year he films Mummy 3, and also co-stars with Jacky Chan in the feature film version of Monkey King. However serious kungfu fans were fully aware of Li's abilities before he grabbed international attention.
Li was an established Chinese action star, with a blue-blooded martial arts pedigree and huge following in Hong Kong.
He started training at the Beijing Wushu Academy at age 8 and won five gold medals in the Chinese championships, his first when he was only 11. In his teens, he was already a national coach, and before he was 20, he had starred in his first movie: Shaolin Temple (1979), which started the 1980s Kungfu boom in the Chinese mainland.
(China Daily 04/25/2007 page18)
