What Jet Li said about kung fu films, audience expectations, and more
- Jet Li Lianjie talks about the different kung fu styles he uses in films and how he does his own stunts
- In these interview highlights Li also explains why he remade Bruce Lee’s Fist of Fury
Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan were both adept at publicising themselves, Lee with his focus on martial arts philosophy, and the young Chan with the cheery personality he adopted after the success of Drunken Master .
Jet Li Lianjie, by his own admission, has generally preferred to stay in front of the cameras and let his kung fu speak for itself. That’s not to say he hasn‘t given interviews. Here are the highlights from some of them.
On the style of kung fu he uses in movies
“Ever since my first film, Shaolin Temple , which encouraged Westerners like Cynthia Rothrock to visit China and study kung fu, I’ve been a leading man. My kung fu is refined and I don’t like to use a wire to fly. It is difficult to define what is real and what is unreal in my films, as I do all the action myself.” Hong Kong TV and Entertainment Times, 1993
On performing kung fu in front of the cameras
“I don’t find playing an action scene out in front of the cameras very difficult. It’s quite easy, in fact. But creating and choreographing a scene is difficult to do, and that takes a lot of thought.”