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Jet to join the ranks of Oscar judges

Martial arts hero Jet Li (below) is among 105 top movie personalities who have been invited to become members of Hollywood's Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to help decide Oscar nominees and winners, the Academy's website, www.oscars.org, has announced.

Li, 45, a former martial arts champion, who has starred in Chinese-language action films and a handful of English-language movies including Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) and Romeo Must Die (2000), is the only Chinese to have beeen invited to join this year. Previous Chinese members included Ang Lee, Chen Kaige, John Woo Yu-sum, Joan Chen and Zhang Ziyi.

Each year, the Academy invites about 100 new people to join as voting members. The membership has remained steady at just under 6,000 since 2003.

The invitees span a variety of fields, from actors, directors, producers, writers to costume designers, makeup artists and hairstylists.

Other personalities invited to join this year include Juno writer Diablo Cody, Sergei Bodrov, writer and director of Mongol, and Marion Cotillard, winner of this year's Oscar for best actress in La Vie en rose.

Academy president Sid Ganis said 'these individuals are all incredibly talented and a credit to the world of filmmaking.

'They exemplify the high standards of the Academy and I welcome each and every one of them to our ranks.'

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