by Brad Balfour

G21 Contributing Editor

To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Chinese and Russian, copy and paste the complete URL("http://www.g21.net/nystate24.htm") and enter it in the box after you click through.

NEW YORK, NY, USA - Though Jet Li made his rep as the ultimate post-Bruce Lee Kung Fu star, he reinvented himself as an action hero for American audiences. His recent films, such as CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE, tarnished his star slightly, underwhelming audiences and critics alike. But his truly shining achievement, the Chinese-language film HERO, won accolades throughout Asia when it was a released a couple of years ago even garnering it an Oscar nomination. Yet it wasn't released in theaters here in the U.S. or on DVD until now. And it's getting acclaim once again.

G21: HERO WAS NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD LAST YEAR. WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG TO GET A U.S .RELEASE? ARE YOU WORRIED THAT PEOPLE MIGHT HAVE SEEN IT ON DVD?

JET LI: Of course. I know lots of people, Chinese people, Asian and American people, who love Asian movies and have already seen the DVD. A Hong Kong company already calculated that they'll lose 20 million dollars because of DVD sales.

Home owner? Prospective buyer? These friends might be able to help. Follow the links ot learn much more.

HBIC New York Realtor and New York Mortgage Broker"
G21: DO YOU FIND IT STRANGE TALKING ABOUT A MOVIE YOU MADE IN 2001?

JET LI: A little bit. This movie already showed in Asia and Europe three years ago. I've already forgotten the movie and now I have to promote the movie again in the US.

G21: DID YOU WATCH IT SO YOU COULD REMEMBER WHAT THE MOVIE WAS ABOUT?

JET LI: I remember it. It is a very good movie and I'm proud to have made it. I don't think "Hero" is a normal action film. There was no bad guy in the entire film, just different characters and different points of view and a different type of ending. In the last 30 minutes of the movie, there isn't any fighting; we just talk, between my character and the king. It's the biggest budgeted Chinese movie ever made in Asia. It took $20 million US dollars to make and then it made $100 Million dollars in Asia.

G21: WHEN YOU MADE "HERO," DID YOU GO BACK AND READ SOME HISTORY OF THE EMPEROR?

JET LI: Everybody knows about this king, he unified China, the languages, and everything. But this story is totally different. I think the director [Zhang Yimou] based the story on history, but it's not a true story. The emperor is more idealized.

G21: WHEN YOU WATCH YOUR MOVIES, AND "HERO" SPECIFICALLY, DO YOU FEEL THAT THERE WERE THINGS THAT YOU COULD HAVE DONE BETTER?

JET LI: Yeah, usually after I make the movie, I'll sit in the theater, hiding somewhere, trying to see the audience's reaction. When they're yelling, I understand why they're yelling; I'm happy. At some point, they won't like it, and I'll feel like I should have done something better but I didn't feel that way. I trusted the director because he's the most famous director in Mainland China.

G21: IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU WORKED WITH HIM?

JET LI: Yes, we've known each other for a long time -- about 10 years ago. When we first met, I asked if we could work together one day on an action film and he said, "No." He said that I had a baby face. He said I needed to wait until one day he could see I was a man and that there was a lot of pain on my faceä"then I can make a movie with you." Six years later he sent me the script for "Hero" and said, "I could see you're very painful right now." [laughs].

G21: WHAT PAIN WERE YOU EXPERIENCING AT THE TIME?

JET LI: Maybe learning English [laughs].

G21: WHEN YOU WATCH AMERICAN ACTION MOVIES, DO YOU WONDER WHAT THEY SPENT THE MONEY ON?

JET LI: I think it's because, in America, they have different unions and they have a lot of different rules. Also the studio has many people involved, producer, associate producer and executive producer. But in mainland China, a lot of people work seven days a week for low cost, no trailers, only the cute actors have trailers and even the director doesn't have a trailer.

G21: HOW DIFFERENT IS YOUR APPROACH IN THIS MOVIE, AS OPPOSED TO DOI NG AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM?

JET LI: It's much easier because it's my mother language, but when you work with this kind of director, there's a lot of pressure because he is very successful and I never know what he needs. But after a while I know he's a very serious director. Sometimes we only take two or three shots a day. He only does the men's shots in the morning and the women's in the afternoon. He says, "girls, when they wake up in the morning, their faces are a little swollen and in the afternoon they look pretty." He never feels time is important. If he wants to see some shots in the sunshine, he'll wait all day, that's it.

G21: AT EIGHT YEARS OLD, YOU GOT STARTED ON MARTIAL ARTS?

JET LI: At that time in China, during the 1970's, when it's summertime, the normal schools all send their students to sports school. There, the coach will do some tests and tell you what sport you're good at. They chose me to learn martial arts. I didn't know anything about martial arts so I just learned.

G21: WHEN YOU FIGHT, YOU MOVE INCREDIBLY FAST, DO YOU DO THAT ON PURPOSE, OR IS THAT JUST THE WAY YOU MOVE?

JET LI: I think it's just the way I move. I've been learning martial arts since I was eight years old so I've been doing it for more than 30 years. If people just learn how to fight, for a few months, just to play that character, it's quite difficult to for them, I believe that if you tell Jet Li to become a tennis player I wouldn't be very good at it.

G21: CAN YOU SLOW IT DOWN?

JET LI: You can slow it down, but you can't show the power and energy inside your body.

G21: DO YOU THINK PEOPLE WHO SAW FILMS LIKE "CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE" WILL ENJOY THIS FILM?

JET LI: I don't know. Miramax decides how to promote the film. An Asian reporter already mentioned that this isn't a martial arts film, but the way they're showing it in the States makes it look like a martial arts film.

G21: ARE THERE ANY OTHER MOVIES YOU WANT TO MAKE?

JET LI: I want to make one film where I'm a monk in New York. I paid money for the studio to write it and when they saw the script, they didn't want to make it because there wasn't a lot of fighting in it. I bought the script back, and hopefully I will get to make it.

G21: HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO SOMETHING DIFFERENT LIKE A ROMANTIC COMEDY?

JET LI: I want to try, but it's difficult. I think it's also difficult for the studio. Even for a movie like "Hero," if I showed the script to the studios and said I want to make this kind of film they might not want to make it. That's why we went to China to make this movie. If I want to make a movie where I'm not the hero, where I'm the bad man, no studio would want to make it.

G21: DO YOU REGRET NOT BEING IN "THE MATRIX RELOADED" OR "CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON"?

JET LI: I turned down "The Matrix," because if I made that movie, I couldn't make "Hero." They wanted me for 18 months to do those two movies, but in 18 months I needed to make "Hero" and "The One." As for "Crouching Tiger," I promised my wife that if she were pregnant, I would stop working until the baby was delivered. I talked to Ang Lee, said sorry and told him the reason.

G21: HOW ABOUT DOING A MOVIE WITH JACKIE CHAN?

JET LI: We tried to make it work 10 years ago, but then, a few years ago, they tried to find a writer for us and for some reason it didn't work.

G21: YOU HAVE FOUR KIDS, ARE THERE CERTAIN LESSONS THAT YOU WOULD TEACH THEM FROM MAKING MOVIES OR FROM LIVING IN THE US AND CHINA?

JET LI: I give them a lot of freedoms, not like myself. I couldn't screw up or make decisions because then only the government or teachers made the decisions. I gave them choice and freedom. We'll try to give them a good education in China and then when they're 14, come back to the States to study American culture and English. It'll be better for them in the future.

THE PREVIOUS NEW YORK STATE | THE NEXT NEW YORK STATE |