Jet Li

Jet Li was married to Huang Qiuyan from 1987 to 1990. They have two daughters, Si and Taimi. He married actress Nina Li Chi in 1999, and they have two daughters, Jane and Jada.

Li obtained United States citizenship in 1997 and renounced it in April 2009. He became a Singaporean citizen in 2009. He converted to Tibetan Buddhism while promoting Lethal Weapon 4 in Taiwan, and his teacher is Lho Kunsang.

In 2013, Li revealed that he had hyperthyroidism and had been dealing with the condition for several years. In 2016, he said he had recovered and was accepting fewer film offers mainly because of his charitable work.

Li began training in wushu after being assigned to a martial arts class during a summer sports programme. He entered the Beijing Sports and Exercise School and later joined the Beijing Wushu Team. At 11, he won his first national championship, and he travelled internationally with the team, including a 1974 visit to the United States where he performed for President Richard Nixon.

He became China's national all-around wushu champion five times and retired from competitive sport in 1979 after a knee injury. His training included several wushu styles and weapons, including changquan, fanziquan, tai chi and the three-section staff. In 2023, he was inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum Hall of Fame.

Li made his film debut in Shaolin Temple (1982), playing a young man who learns martial arts from monks at the Shaolin Temple. The film was an enormous success in China and led to two sequels, helping revive interest in martial arts cinema and the Shaolin Temple itself.

He became a leading Hong Kong action star in the 1990s. In Once Upon a Time in China (1991), directed by Tsui Hark, he portrayed Wong Fei-hung, a legendary martial arts master who opposes injustice and foreign encroachment. Li returned to the role in two sequels. Other notable films from this period included Swordsman II, Fong Sai-yuk, Fist of Legend, Black Mask and The Legend of Fong Sai-yuk 2.

Li directed and starred in Born to Defense (1988), his first directorial effort. He also worked with Tsui Hark on The Master (1989) and later reunited with him for Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (2011).

Li made his Hollywood debut as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). His first Hollywood leading role followed in Romeo Must Die (2000), in which he starred opposite Aaliyah. He then appeared in Kiss of the Dragon, The One, Cradle 2 the Grave and War.

His international work also included major Chinese-language productions. He played a warrior in Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002), a man raised as an enforcer in Unleashed (2005), and the historical martial arts master Huo Yuanjia in Fearless (2006). Fearless was presented as his final wushu martial arts epic, although he continued acting in action and fantasy films.

In The Warlords (2007), Li played General Pang Qingyun and won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor. He appeared with Jackie Chan for the first time in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), and played the Emperor in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor the same year. He later joined the ensemble cast of The Expendables and its 2012 and 2014 sequels. In 2020, he played the Emperor of China in Disney's live-action Mulan.

Li became a philanthropic ambassador for the Red Cross Society of China in 2006. After surviving the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, he founded One Foundation in 2007. The organisation supports disaster relief, mental health awareness and suicide prevention, and was registered in 2011 as China's first private charitable fundraising organisation.

He was appointed the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' first goodwill ambassador in 2010. Li also founded Taiji Zen in 2011 with Jack Ma. The programme combines tai chi with meditation and offers classes and online instruction.