Jet Li had “a lot of fights” behind the scenes on Lethal Weapon 4 because he had to push for his own fight choreography team.
Jet Li had “a lot of fights” behind the scenes on Lethal Weapon 4.
The 62-year-old Chinese actor made his international debut playing the villainous Wah Sing Ku in the 1998 action film and he recalled having to push filmmaker Richard Donner to bring in his own fight choreographers after declaring it a “waste” of time and money to work with US action experts.
Li told Empire magazine: “The American choreographers didn’t know martial arts.
“They would make scenes that just went ‘punch-punch-punch’. I said, ‘That’s’s a waste of time and a waste of money.
“If you believe in me, give me a small team and I can make something different.’ “
The actor was eventually given permission to bring in his own crew, led by Corey Yeun, and the risk paid off.
He recalled: “With Lethal Weapon 4, we brought Hong Kong-style to the Western audience and they liked it.
“There were a lot of fights behind the scenes, but we believed in ourselves.
“I told the producers, ‘Just give me one sequence. Try Hong Kong style. Try something different’.
“Finally, they gave us the chance and we were proved right. The audience wanted to see something fresh.”
Director Donner and franchise lead Mel Gibson even asked Li and Yuen to form their own second unit after being impressed by their ideas.
Li said: “That sequence on the roof, where I’m fighting with one hand, was a new scene we shot on our own in two days. It was done totally Hoong Kong style.”
When he was just 16, Li was offered the starring role in Shaolin Temple – the first martial arts movie to be filmed in mainland China rather than Hong Kong – and he was given very little guidance in the Hsin-Yen Chang-directed production.
He laughed: “We didn’t know anything about making action movies.
“There was no choreographer. The director would just tell us, ‘You’re the good guy he’s the bad guy. After one minute you’re losing, then three minutes later you win.’
“We worked it out ourselves.”
The movie was a huge hit and Li became a big star, but felt huge pressure when he was cast as folk hero Wong Fei-hung in 1991’s Once Upon a Time in China, a legendary character who had featured in more than 100 movies, most often played by Kwan Tak-hing.
He recalled: “It was like James Bond. When they change the actor, the fans say, ‘No, James Bond should be this guy!’ ”
Jet Li had ‘a lot of fights’ on Lethal Weapon 4 set
