I won’t lie, most of my blogs towards the end of April were a little “short king” heavy, as Dan had mentioned. So after taking a slight hiatus from blogging about short kings (not really - I literally only wrote 3 blogs that weren’t related to short dudes, since then), we are back with the Short King of the month. Now this one is a little bit of a special blog because it is sort of like a two for one special. It’s not quite the end of the month yet, which means it’s technically Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. One of my favorite action stars of all time, Jet Li, happens to check both boxes- as a super cool Asian dude and a short king.
If you’re not a big fan of action movies, especially foreign ones, then you’ve probably have never heard of Jet Li. It’s kind of hard to gauge how popular of a celebrity he is because while he has been in a lot of movies (both Chinese and American), Jet Li is not really brought up in the mainstream media a whole lot. Anyway, allow me to give him a proper introduction.
Jet Li is a Chinese born-Singaporean actor and martial artist, who has starred in at least 47 feature length films. Most of these films fall under the genre of classic martial arts/action. If you’ve ever seen him fight in one of these movies, he’s a badass. He’s quick, he’s smooth, and I’m pretty sure that he does most of his own stunts. He's basically the Tom Cruise of China. His acting on the other hand.. Let’s just say he’s not winning an Academy Award for any of his performances- but that’s okay because what he lacks in dramatic art, he makes up for with his fighting performances. I'm not gonna hate on his acting too much, because English isn't his first language.
I grew up watching quite a bit of his movies, some of my favorites include: The Forbidden Kingdom (co-starring Jackie Chan), Unleashed (which was actually a very heartfelt movie, probably one of his best performances), Cradle 2 the Grave (co-starring alongside the late rapper DMX), and Romeo Must Die (where he co-starred alongside Aaliyah- RIP too). Unfortunately over the past decade or so, he hasn’t really made a lot of movies, however his existing body of work is quite substantial.
Side note: while trying to figure out who to feature for this month’s Short King, it was between Jet Li or Jackie Chan (both popular martial artists/movie stars)- however my decision was made for me when I found out Jackie Chan was 5’9”, just over the short king threshold. This brings me to my next point. Jet Li is a certified Short King, standing at a solid 5 foot 6. This number could be questionable though, as he definitely looks shorter in the movies he has starred in (l used to think he was closer to like 5’4’). However, when you compare his height to some of his co-stars, the 5’6” starts to make more sense.
Acting and fighting in 47 movies over the past 3 to 4 decades is quite an accomplishment. I wish to see him star in at least a couple more movies, before fully retiring. Jet Li has got to be one of the coolest short kings I’ve written about so far.
God bless,
Happy Short King Spring…
Get ready for Short King Summer
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Can't get short king spring as well as summer... but good choice.