Jet Li - Li Lianjie

 

Jet Li, real name Li Lianjie, is a Chinese film actor and wushu master. He won the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actor for his role as General Pan Qing-yun in The Warlords (2007). Jet Li was born in Beijing, China, on April 26, 1963. He was the youngest of two brothers and two sisters. When he was two years old, his father died and the family became poor. He went to school at age 8 where he was the oldest in his class. Jett was liked by teachers because he often helped lead physical education classes. After the first class of Jett with the students in the summer were sent to a sports camp, where he began studying wushu. Later Li confessed that he got into wushu not purposefully, but quite accidentally. Li Lianjie, the only one of his peers, was strongly recommended to continue studying wushu and he became a daily student, which allowed Li Lianjie to develop high speed for what he was nicknamed Jet. Having passed several stages of selection, in 1972 he got to the national wushu championships and won the "Best Master" prize. After this victory, he was exempted from regular school, and most of his time was spent in the gym, honing his skills. In 1974, China selected the best of the best. As a result, the National Wushu Team of the country was formed, which consisted of 30 people, including Li. The team was assigned to represent the PRC in the United States. This trip, according to Li himself, holds a special place in his life. Prior to the trip, all the athletes were given detailed instructions on what they could and could not do in the United States. They were specifically warned about possible bugging and surveillance. Interestingly, in the U.S., Lee tried to check for "bugs" on his own: while in an American hotel room, he alternately approached a vase, a mirror and a phone and loudly said he wanted chocolate, ice cream and fruit. For a while, Jet would leave the room, and when he returned, he would see that everything he had asked for was on the table. The Chinese athletes were patronized by dozens of CIA agents, State Department officials and police officers on their trip to the United States. Li's performances were noted by President Richard Nixon himself.

He won first place in the all-around and dao sword complexes at China's first National Junior Wushu Championship in 1974. In 1975, at the age of 12, Jet was sent to the qualifying tournament for the Third National Wushu Championships. He won in five disciplines of five possible (the rivals were adult athletes). The same year Jet won four gold medals at the Third Championships in Beijing (all-round, unarmed complex, complex with spear and complex with sword Dao). In 1976-1977, the Chinese team made a world tour. In 1977 at the National Wushu Competition Li took first place in the complex with dao sword, and was unattainable among the followers of the "long fist" style. In 1978, Jet Li was again the gold medalist (in the all-around, unarmed complex and complex with dao sword). In 1979 at the Fourth Chinese Wushu Championship he won the all-round, "long fist" style, unarmed complex, complex with dao sword and demonstration bouts.

In 1987, Jet Li married an athlete Huang Quyuan, who together with him performed in the Chinese national wushu team, as well as starring in the movie "Shaolin Temple". In the marriage were born two daughters. In 1990, the couple divorced.

In 1999, Jet Li married again. His fiancee was the Hong Kong actress Nina Li Chi. The couple is raising two children: Jane (born in 2000) and Jada (2002).

In 2004, Jet Li and his daughter were vacationing in the Maldives when the tsunami hit southeast Asia. At first it was thought that Lee died during the cataclysm, but it was later revealed that he only hurt his leg rescuing his daughter from the hotel lobby.