Li Lian Jie, a.k.a. Jet Li, was born on April 26, 1963, in the suburbs of Beijing, China. He developed a keen interest in martial arts at a young age and was soon enrolled in an academy. Jet’s skills blossomed quickly and he eventually took his art to the road, winning many competitions, putting on various demonstrations and spreading the word of WuShu.

By the time he was 19, Jet was considered an athletic star for his achievements in his sport, which, incidentally, was the year his first ever movie came out – Shaolin Temple. After this release, Jet shot to superstardom all over Asia.

With almost thirty Asian films and eight Hollywood movies under his belt (The Warlords is his latest Asian piece directed by Peter Chan and starring alongside Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro, and The Forbidden Kingdom alongside a certain Jackie Chan is his new Hollywood actioner) Jet is equally famous and popular on both sides of the world.

Jet is one busy guy, if he’s not filming or on a worldwide tour promoting a new movie he’s taking an active part in his charity organisation. Next up for Jet is the Hollywood action adventure, The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor where he will play the role of Emperor Han shooting shortly on location in China and Canada alongside Michelle Yeoh.

Just before the wrap on The Forbidden Kingdom our own Richard Cooper spoke with Jet to China to discuss his newly released War as well as a few other topics.

Jade Screen: Jet, can you tell us about the role you play in War?

Jet Li: The character I play, you don’t know if he is a bad guy or a good guy. He tries to figure out who are his enemies, who’s fighting his angle, and he’s trying to get revenge and get the real bad guy who caused the loss of his family, the loss of his children. So from that point he will go to the end to find the truth. I never played this kind of character before because myself, I don’t know whether he’s good or bad. That really depends later when you see the movie. When the audience sees the movie, they decide. I only know this character is very violent and has a reason. Something [he] always keeps in his heart, his belief. The other movies I play, a lot of characters are very clearly good guys or a cop or the master in Chinese films. Very straight forward from the top to the end.

This one, he’s violent and there’s a big difference between a martial arts movie and this kind of movie. A martial arts movie, like recently I made Fearless, it doesn’t just have martial arts. It also has philosophy. How to use martial arts just for violence to kill people, or you can use martial arts to stop something, to help people. How you use it, just like a weapon. A weapon is not good and not bad. It really depends on the person using it. So martial arts has a lot of culture behind physical moves. This, I don’t think is a martial arts movie. It is an action movie. It’s not a typical Chinese [movie] we call Kung Fu or a martial arts movie.�

JS: Your character in War is called Rogue and that was the original title for the film wasn’t it?

JL: Yes, the production company thought of that name and the film was heavily into production in Canada when they decided to change it. They called it Rogue because the film is about my characters journey throughout the film and then they changed it to War because it suited the style of the film better because it is a story about me against Jason Statham.

JS: Do you prefer War or Rogue as a title? (Laughing)

JL: (Laughing) I don’t mind either, really … To me, I’m just the actor – let everyone else concern themselves with the name. If I am the Producer then I will be concerned about the name but I’m just acting on this one.

by Richard Cooper.

For the rest of the interview please see JADE SCREEN VOL. 4, ISSUE 6