Usually action films have a formula: good guy gets in trouble, his wife dies, friends have problems, so he goes to the mountain, learns martial arts, comes back, and kills the bad guy.
You can use martial arts to tell a different story. Ang Lee used martial arts in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' to talk about love.
I think Ang Lee is a very, very talented director. He used martial arts to talk about love and girl, you know... But Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts film to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope the world will become.
I have met Jackie Chan about 6 times up 'til now... and even though many people think we are natural enemies, I personally think he is a cool bloke and would honestly love to work with him in a film one time - that would a well brilliant movie!
I need to talk about Chinese culture. We have deep, strong philosophy and culture. I want to share some information, tell the worldwide audience.
Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope.
My wife wanted my children to have some Chinese culture and education. She believes the children need to learn two languages and two cultures.
In the States, you can buy Chinese food. In Beijing you can buy hamburger. It's very close. Now I feel the world become a big family, like a really big family. You have many neighbors. Not like before, two countries are far away.
Working on a film, the setup for an action sequence takes a long time, and we need to shoot the scene many times to get different angles.
I study more of truth and enlightening. I had to go the next level to talk about life.
Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do. You can both go to two Chinese restaurants, but both can have different kinds of food.
Jackie Chan is a very good comedy/martial arts star. He does one kind of martial arts that Jet Li doesn't know how to do, and Jet Li does a martial art that Jackie Chan doesn't know how to do.
People would come to me and say, 'Jet, your Kung Fu is pretty good, do you want to be an action star when you grow up?' At 17, I was given the script and I went to make the movie.
Everywhere I go, I still have time to meditate. People think meditating is sitting there, nobody bothering you, but you can even talk and still meditate.
Zhang is a friend of mine: he said forget about acting and just do normal things in the movie.
I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat.
