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Adieu to Wushu: Interview with Jet Li [by Scott Thill]
We've been here before. Jet Li, martial arts master and action star, decides to hang up the wushu but eventually returns. Which is why this time around, he's just hanging up the philosophy. The American debut of Fearless marks Li's final foray into wushu cinema, a strain of Asian action films dealing with fighting Chinese folk heroes and their ass-kicking histories and practices. And it's time for it to end.
"I put all of my beliefs that I've learned through my life journey in Fearless, Li explains. "That's why I say this is the last martial arts movie for me."
Which to outsiders might not sound like much, but in the annals of Hong Kong action cinema history B.T. (before Tarantino ripped it off), Li is a wushu supernova. He gold-medaled in martial-arts before helping cement mainland and Hong Kong action cinema's name with wushu-centric films like the Once Upon a Time in China and Fong Sai-Yuk franchises, Fist of Legend and onward to Fearless.
So he's got Chinese cinema's storied trove of martial arts film production on lockdown, and that strain is simply everywhere. Without Jet Li's wushu brilliance, contempoarary action cinema from not just the East but across the world would look, sound and swing much differently.
Which is not to say that Li's done with action films altogether: Filmgoers love their violence, and martial arts cinema has particularly nasty ways of delivering it. (See kindred spirits the Shaw Brothers or Wu-Tang Clan for more on that score).
But Li insists the art itself is not to blame. In the wrong hands (and heart), wushu is a dangerous weapon. Good thing Li knows how to handle weaponry.
Morphizm: Fearless is your last wushu film. How did you come to this decision?
Jet Li: Usually, martial arts films deal only with its physical element. Physical power can be used in many movies. But it's just a device to help story and character. Films usually do not bring up the mental and philosophical elements of martial arts, how to use martial arts. Or how to become a true martial artist in life. Not many movies talk about this subject. From my understanding, there is nothing deeper than this.
Morphizm: Can you explain the difference, for those who do not fully understand, between wushu film and an action film that uses martial arts? I'm assuming by you mean films that deal thematically with wushu, rather action films that employ martial arts.
Jet Li: Your understanding of the difference is very close. Action films that employ the use of martial arts are just like films where you a car in a car chase. But you are not talking about how to make the car or deeply explain how the car works.
Morphizm: Your philosophy on wushu explains is that it is not to be used for vengeance, selfish gain or to inflict needless suffering, and Fearless seems to hammer this point home. Yet films that use martial arts are sometimes violent to the extreme.
Jet Li: Unleashed, for example, uses martial arts to talk about a certain philosophy and belief as well. In the beginning of the film, Danny has the power to knock people down in seconds. But he has never experienced or shared friendship, feelings or emotion. The understanding of a family. He's no different than a wild animal. At the end of movie, through Morgan Freeman's character, he is changed. He knows responsibility, understands emotion. He becomes human and a nice person.
Morphizm: Do you feel the pressure to carry that philosophy into all your films?
Jet Li: I can't make each movie a Jet Li personal philosophy movie. In some movies, I'm just an actor. I need to play the role do the job. The story is told by a director or a studio to make entertainment. Two different kinds of movies. As far as violence, it's not the only solution. But I didn't say it's not a solution. But in my films, I try to show another side. How to stop the violence. You see this in films such as Hero , Unleashed , and now in Fearless.
Morphizm: In the end, it's still about who's wielding the power.
Jet Li: Martial arts is just a skill; it's not good or bad in and of itself. Like a gun, it is a thing. This is the skill of martial arts. But you have to refer to the philosophy or look at the person wielding it. How are you using martial arts? How do you use it? Can you control it, for good or evil?
August 24, 2006
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