Jet Li

Li Lianjie (courtesy name Yangzhong; born 26 April 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese-born Singaporean martial artist, former Wushu champion, film actor, film producer, and philanthropist.

He is widely regarded as one of the most iconic Chinese film stars and one of the most renowned martial arts stars of his generation.

After three years of training with acclaimed Wushu teacher Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team.

Between 1974 and 1979, he won the title of Men's All-Around National Wushu Champion five times.

In 1974, Li was part of a delegation of forty-three martial arts practitioners who traveled to the United States as part of China's people's diplomacy.

The group performed for American audiences in Hawaii, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

According to Li, once, as a child, when the Chinese National Wushu Team went to perform for President Richard Nixon in the United States, he was asked by Nixon to be his personal bodyguard.

Li replied, "I don't want to protect any individual. When I grow up, I want to defend my one billion Chinese countrymen!"

Li is a master of several styles of wushu, especially changquan and fanziquan.

He has also studied other arts including baguazhang, tai chi, xingyiquan, drunken boxing, Eagle Claw, and Praying Mantis.

He did not learn Nanquan ("Southern Boxing"), because his training focused only in the Northern Shaolin Styles.

He has also mastered wushu's main weapons, such as Sanjiegun (Three Section Staff), Gun, Dao (Broadsword), Jian (Straight Sword).

Li retired from competitive wushu when he was only 18 due to a knee injury, but became an assistant coach of the Beijing Wushu team for a few years.

Li's martial arts prowess would eventually contribute to his domestic and international fame.

The fame gained by his sports winnings led to a career as a martial arts film star, beginning in mainland China and then continuing into Hong Kong.

A very young Li competed against adults and was the national all-around champion from 1975 to 1979.

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After retiring from competitive Wushu at age 18, Li went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor, making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982), which instantly catapulted him to stardom in East Asia.

Li acquired his screen name in 1982 in the Philippines when a publicity company thought his real name was too hard to pronounce.

They likened his career to an aircraft, which likewise "takes-off" as quickly, so they placed the name Jet Li on the movie posters.

Soon everybody was calling him by this new name, which was also based on the nickname, "Jet", given to him as a young student, due to his speed and grace when training with the Beijing Wushu team.

He made his film debut with the 1982 film Shaolin Temple.

The film broke box office records in China, grossing CN¥161,578,014 (US$) at the Chinese box office, from an estimated 500 million ticket sales.

His movie career in China is credited with reviving Wushu in Hong Kong martial arts films during the 1990s, and revitalising the Shaolin Temple.

Li is also noted for his contribution to making new Wuxia films popular internationally during his career.

Li's first role in a non-Chinese film was as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), and his first leading role in a Hollywood film was as Han Sing in Romeo Must Die (2000).

He has gone on to star in many international action films, including in French cinema with the Luc Besson-produced films Kiss of the Dragon (2001) and Unleashed (2005).

He co-starred in The One (2001) and War (2007) with Jason Statham, The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) with Jackie Chan, the first three of The Expendables films with Sylvester Stallone, and as the title character villain in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008).

He went on to star in many critically acclaimed films, most notably as the lead in Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), Fist of Legend (1994), the first three films in the Once Upon a Time in China series (1991–1993), in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-hung, and Fearless (2006), which is loosely based on the life of Huo Yuanjia.

After a long movie career, in 2007 Li turned to philanthropy.

He founded the One Foundation, an independent fundraising foundation in mainland China which mainly focuses on natural disaster relief, environmental protection, medical treatment, education and poverty problems.

Since the start of the foundation, Li has been involved with recovery efforts in seven disasters, including the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the 2008 Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan, and the 2013 Lushan earthquake in Ya’an, Sichuan.

Li also subsequently founded Taiji Zen, an online health and wellness program providing instruction in meditation and tai chi.

Li was born in Beijing, China, and was the youngest of two boys and two girls.

His ancestral home is in Shenyang, China.

When he was two years old, his father died and his family then lived in poverty.

Li was eight when his talent for Wushu was noticed as he practiced at a school summer course.

He then attended a non-sparring wushu event, followed by joining the Beijing Wushu Team which did a martial art display at the All China Games.

Renowned coaches Li Junfeng and Wu Bin made extra efforts to help the talented boy develop.

Wu Bin even bought food for Li's family in order to boost Li's protein intake.