Jet Li: Getting Real…then unreal

Mr. Showbiz has an update on martial arts star Jet Li from Cannes. Now that even Drew Barrymore can do the acrobat crap, what’s Li’s advantage? Jet Li Knows Kung Fu–and You Don’t. His next flick, Kiss of the Dragon, written and directed by Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Professional) and due out in July, is a back to basics, no invisible wire, street fighting blast.

After that, he has a science fiction thriller due at Thanksgiving called The One, which has lots of computer effects and wire work. This movie, written by X-Files vets James Wong and Glen Morgan, is the first major movie to use the multiverse concept, with Li as a cop who finds a way to travel between universes to kill the alternate versions of himself. Interestingly, wrestler/Scorpion King The Rock was originally going to star in this one.

The multiverse concept, in short, says that the universe we see/exist in is not the only one but is one of many, each of which differs minutely from its immediate neighbors (think of very thin slices of a block) and more are constantly being created each time a decision point/choice is breached. While this is the first major film to exploit the concept, it has been used widely in SF novels and comics. Multiverse is also the name of a popular roleplaying game.