He was almost killed in the 2004 tsunami
The devastation caused by the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 cannot be understated. On December 26, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake shook the seabed off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, sending 40-foot waves hurtling towards land. In the end, a staggering 230,000 people lost their lives across 14 different countries, one of which was the Maldives. Li and his family were vacationing on one of the 26 ring-shaped atolls that make up the South Asian republic when the tsunami struck, and they had a very lucky escape.
“The waves came really quickly and formed swirls,” Li explained during a Hong Kong fundraiser (via SantaBanta). “I carried my daughters and pulled my maid and ran. I’d only walked three steps when I realized that the water had already come up to my waist.” In a matter of seconds, the idyllic setting turned into something from a nightmare. “When I looked back, everything I saw minutes ago was gone,” Li continued. “Everything was surrounded by the ocean. The houses collapsed. I continued to run but the water was already up to my mouth.”
Luckily, Li, his family and his maid all survived to tell the tale, which the actor apparently intends to do. In 2017, reports suggested that he was planning to star in a film about the tsunami, a China-Indonesia co-production. The story of fellow survivor Maria Belon and her incredibly resilient family was given the
big-screen treatment in 2012’s The Impossible.
The experience changed his life
Surviving the tsunami changed Li’s outlook on life. The actor had an epiphany following the disaster, deciding that he wanted to dedicate himself to philanthropy after being “deeply moved” by the treatment he and his family received from total strangers. If it weren’t for the actions of four brave men who swam to Li’s aid after he screamed for help, his two youngest daughters would have likely drowned.
“The experience of surviving the chaos and witnessing the devastation caused by this natural disaster has changed me forever,” he told Alliance . “During the recovery period in the Maldives, I was deeply moved to see that everyone who was able to help willingly pitched in. Never once did anyone ask ‘Where are you from?’ or ‘What nationality are you?’ I wondered: was it possible to keep that spirit alive and transcend traditional boundaries to help humanity at large?”
To satisfy his curiosity, Li set up his own foundation. “I realized that all the money and power in the world would not have saved me from the water,” he said in a detailed piece for Newsweek . “That night I decided that I couldn’t wait until I was retired; I had to do something right away.” The whole ordeal put life into perspective for him. “I had spent the first 41 years of my life thinking about Jet Li first, wanting to prove I was special, wanting to prove I was a star.”
Aaliyah’s death hit him hard
Li’s first appearance in a Hollywood movie was as the villain in 1998’s Lethal Weapon 4 , but he wasn’t used to playing a bad guy, especially one that kicks ladies in the face . He got his chance to play the hero two years later when he was cast as the male lead in 2000’s
Romeo Must Die , starring opposite
Aaliyah . Like Li, the R&B singer-turned-actress was trying to earn her stripes in Tinseltown. Sadly, she died before she really got the chance to establish herself.
On August 25, 2001, the 22-year-old boarded a small plane headed to Miami. The aircraft would never reach its destination. Aaliyah and several staffers from her record label (who had been with her in the Bahamas filming a video for her song “Rock the Boat”) perished when the plane crashed. The pilot reportedly warned Aaliyah and her party that the small aircraft was dangerously overloaded, but he apparently relented and took off anyway, possibly with a
faulty engine. For those that knew Aaliyah, the circumstances took second place to the grief.
When Li returned to Vancouver (where
Romeo was filmed) for the movie Rogue , he found being back there hard. “I have some memories of this very beautiful city but it still makes me think about Aaliyah,” he told IGN. “We worked together here for a few months. She was such a talented girl and some locations when you pass by every day, you still think about her.”
He turned down a role in The Matrix
Romeo Must Die didn’t blow the critics away (it only managed 33 percent on the (Tomatometer ), but Li was considered one of the highlights. The box office numbers were a little more convincing. The film managed to rake in $91 million worldwide from a budget of $25 million, which was seen as a pretty decent haul at the time. All things considered it was a success for Li, who felt so comfortable with his future prospects that he turned down a role in the Matrix sequels.
Speaking to TalkAsia (via CNN ), the star explained that he had to make a choice between The Matrix (he was reportedly offered the part of Seraph ) and Hero . “Sometimes you get something and sometimes you lose something,” Li said.
He claimed to be a fan of the Wachowskis, but he wasn’t a fan of what the sibling directors did to the action genre. “After The Matrix , everybody do action movie with people fighting while flying around,” Li complained. “Suddenly everyone can fight. Man can do, girl can do, little boy can do, even cartoon can do the same thing. In this movie, everyone really can do.”
His decision to favor Hero over The Matrix sequels paid off, as the Chinese
wuxia film won wide approval. “With death-defying action sequences and epic historic sweep, Hero offers everything a martial arts fan could ask for,” Rotten Tomatoes critics concluded. The movie was Certified Fresh with a score of 95 percent.
He renounced his American citizenship
After his breakthrough in America, Li found himself spending more and more time in the States. He decided that it made sense to apply for American citizenship, which he was duly granted, but he renounced both his American and Chinese citizenship in 2009 in order to move to Singapore, which doesn’t allow dual nationals. The actor reportedly spent around $15 million on a swanky three-floor property and moved his family to the tax-friendly island, following in the footsteps of Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and fellow martial arts movie legend Jackie Chan.
The fact that he likely pays half the amount of tax he would be paying in the States was surely a factor, but according to Nomad Capitalist, Singapore’s excellent education system also influenced Li’s decision. But how did the people of China (the ones he swore allegiance to while a guest at the White House) take the news? Traditionally, Chinese celebrities that ditch the homeland for Singapore are dubbed traitors and lose major credit (actress Gong Li was pilloried online when she became a Singaporean in 2008), though this didn’t happen with Li.
According to the South China Morning Post, polls revealed that only half of the Chinese citizens asked about Li leaving China objected to it, with one fan even suggesting that they would like to do the same. “It’s [his] right to live where [he] wants to,” the blogger wrote. “If I could, I will follow suit. [Singapore’s] passport is better.”
Is his health failing?
Rumors that Li was in grave health spread like wildfire in 2018 after a photo of the actor looking old and worryingly frail went viral, forcing his manager to respond. Steven Chasman told USA
Today that the story was “much ado about nothing” and Li was simply in a bad light when he posed for a quick snap with a fan. “It’s one picture and people are making these interpretations from it,”
Chasman said. “If you took a picture [of] me at the wrong angle and wrong time of the day, I could look frail as well.”
Fans were quick to blame Li’s grave new look on his hyperthyroidism, a condition that makes the thyroid gland produce too many hormones.
He was diagnosed in 2010, and while he’s been able to keep it under control using medication, his hyperthyroidism has often been a cause for concern among fans.
“The web has been abuzz with news that I’m going to be wheelchair-bound,” Li said in 2016 (via The Straits Times ). “Even my friends are concerned and are asking how I am.”
The action star joked that a wheelchair company had been spreading the rumors to boost sales and reassured fans that he was a-okay. “There is nothing to worry about my health,” he said.
Li looked capable as ever in behind-the-scenes footage from a 2017 short film, and Disney is clearly happy with his health, as the Mouse House has cast him in its upcoming live-action remake of Mulan.
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