Expressing displeasure over the fact that the theme of martial arts movies is "always revenge," Jet Li has told the Los Angeles Times that he will no longer make such films. Li made his remarks on the eve of the opening of his latest film, Fearless, about a Chinese martial arts master who died in 1910. "In this movie and in my past three movies, I continue to say that violence is not any solution," Li told the Times.He said that he had become concerned that the spirit of martial arts, wushu, had become lost in movies, especially when young people confronted him. "On the street, I see a lot of young teenagers saying, 'Hey, Jet Lit. Beat up somebody! Fight! Fight!" The true meaning of wushu, he said, is "stop fighting."

Hmm. Well, revenge is a good reason for people who don't bo battle all the time to do battle. And those are more sympathetic people than the constant fighters. So the revenge thing makes sense.

Seems like he's either giving up the genre as being irredeemably tainted, or conceding that he can't or doesn't want to fix it. Shame.

But he hasn't been in any great English language movies...and I'm behind on his Chinese/HK ones of late.

I'd wondered about those "Jet Li's LAST martial arts movie!" promos. And googled to see if he died in August while I was getting almost no exposure to news.

I think the real story is that Jet Li has knees made of brie, and canna do the fighty-fight thing at full throttle any more, and would rather retire to some other role than be diminished gradually on celluloid.

He retired pretty early from competition for the same reason, IIRC.

(He is so charming, when he's not doing the fart-smelling acting thing. I don't know why he doesn't get romantic comedy roles. His English is pretty good too!)

He retired pretty early from competition for the same reason, IIRC.

Not so much brie as a torn ligament, which can (and does) happen to the hardiest of us.

You mean ligaments are not made of brie? The point was, he's not the sort for a comeback tour.

(I'm kind of surprised that's all it was -- ACL or something? People do come back from that in other sports. Although, I don't really follow sports where knees are used as weapons.)

Wu shu's not about limbs as weapons--it's a non contact sport, more like floor gymnastics. A fighter could definitely come back from that--dancers and gymnasts I know less about.

But my point was that he didn't retire because he had creaky knees--he retired because he blew out a joint. As someone with creaky knees and no ligament damage who knows people who are quite the converse, it's a big gap between the two.

But it's apparent I misread brie to be something less catastrophic than I associate with blown knees.

Seems like he's either giving up the genre as being irredeemably tainted, or conceding that he can't or doesn't want to fix it. Shame.

He was on the KROQ morning show the other day, and I heard the interview. He was adorable! They asked him about the LAST martial arts movie thing, and his answer was basically that this film ultimately expresses his philosophy about martial arts (specifically with regard to wu shu), and after this he has nothing left to say on the subject. He plans on continuing to act, and he's happy to make action movies, and even play characters who beat up other characters, but he's done with wu shu movies.

Done with wu shu...that's fascinating. And it makes sense. I did like his movie The One because it had symbolic fight choreography--and I think it used that to talk about wu shu too.

ACL or something? People do come back from that in other sports.

Yes, but it's more than a year out, and another year of being at less than full speed. Your lateral movement is severely impaired. I've mostly seen it with basketball players who have to make sharp cuts. But a blown ACL is fairly significant.

Another dragon movie trailer: [link]