Li-thal Weapon

Che Sa!

This is about Jet Li. The reason why I put up this post is cos I saw five of his movies last week. That's right, five! And then, it became one of my periodic obsessions, which still hasnt ended, so I actually went to jetli.com (man, i'm becoming more and more like a teenage schoolgirl everyday) and read up all his interviews.
Anyways about those five - Kiss the Dragon, Danny the Dog (right, not too good on the movie titles, but anyway) i had on dvd, so i watched both one lazy sunday afternoon. Then, unwilling to relinquish the comfortable chair in front of the tv, i was flipping channels, and bang! romeo must die was playing... Then the next day, surfing at night, 'Meltdown!' came on Star Movies, and then the next day i was considering picking up Cradle 2 the Grave and guess whats on HBO that evening!
I know a sign of God when I see one.

I think it should start with Romeo Must Die, which is his best, I think. The movie is a take on Romeo and Juliet, of course, and instead of the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets you have a Chinese family and a black family in the American underworld battling for supremacy around the waterfront, with members from either family being killed, sparking off the war, like in the source text. There's even a variation of a balcony scene somewhere there!
Besides, the ghetto/Chinese combination is way cool, and the final showdown fight sequence is fuckin awesome. And lets not forget, Aaliyah is pretty damn hot.

Apparently after that movie his fans bombarded him emails saying the fight scenes were not good (sheesh, they seemed pretty ok to me!) so he made a movie with French director Luc Benson (?) Kiss the Dragon, with much more hardcore scenes, a lot of ground skirmishes, and no wires suspending the actors midair to make it look impressive, as was becoming the norm in Hollywood. I think on the whole, they succeeded, with the scene to watch out being the bit where Jet's in the police station (in the movie, he's battling with a corrupt police commissioner in France), being chased by less important cops with guns, and he runs into a room and locks the door to escape them. He turns around, and there's a martial arts class going on - 20/30 cops in robes, practising their punches or whatever. And of course, he takes them all on and beats the shit out of them, and boy is it good to watch!
Danny the Dog - wierd wierd movie, the bad guys kind of remind me of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels... atrociously violent in a wierdly funny way. The fight sequences in this are not that great..... very very gruesome, but still, i guess kudos to Jet for taking on a really unusual (bizarre is more like it) role.
Cradle 2 the Grave... I don't like DMX!!!
Meltdown - Chinese movie = strange sense of humour = good fun if you're in a kind of mood.

But still, my fav. scene from Jet Li is the cult scene from Lethal Weapon 4 when he first burst onto Hollywood, where he watches Mel Gibson and Danny Glover go it with his minions, a half smile on his face, and then he takes a hand in the fight and simply goes berserk. How must that have been when the movie first came out, and noone really knew him? I would nominate it best action sequence ever, easy. And Craig dammit, your dvd gets stuck correctly at that point! i HATE you.

I had done a story for Madras Plus a couple of years back about the 3 kung fu stalwarts, Bruce Lee Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and i totally enjoyed researching it. Bruce of course, has a fascinating life, and the movie about his life - behind the dragon or whatever its called - tho not a great movie in itself - its a true story! Jackie Chan, all his pitiful attempts at comedy in Tuxedo, and reasonably successful attempt at comedy in Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon are deceptive - the boy had a quite a life. In one story, he spoke about an occasion when he and his buddies got into a fight with a motorcycle gang, and at the end of it, he saw something white on his ankle. He thought it was part of his bone, but then when he touched it, he realised it was the tooth of one of the motorcycle guys!
But still, much as those two guys are great, Jet Li is so contemporary, he's - just - cool!

Anyone would want to have the kind of skill he does. BUT then you read up on his life, and you're like... never mind! An awful amount of hard work on top of the fact that he was a prodigy.. not worth! Apparently once he broke his foot, but hid it cos then there would be twice as many exercises for the arms.. and sure enough, his instructor found out he had broken his foot, so another friend used to carry him on his back to practise, and then he would practise with his hands, and then get carried back. Madness.

Couple of interesting facts if you didn't already know it...
1) He was supposed to be the lead in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which is I think common knowledge... but anyway, thank god! All those people flying around the trees.. idiotic movie.
2) He was offered a role in Matrix 2 and 3... and he turned it down! Why is anybody's guess...
3) He's gonna play the Chinese sidekick in the movie verion of the Green Hornet - the TV series in which Bruce Lee made a name for himself! Unfortunately, production has been prorogued for, but I can't hardly wait!