Jet Li: How Surviving the Tsunami Changed My Life

THE ACTION STAR’S REVEALING NEW MEMOIR DETAILS HIS FAMILY’S HARROWING ESCAPE FROM THE DEADLY 2004 INDIAN OCEAN DISASTER AND THE EMOTIONAL AFTERMATH

- ANGELA ANDALORO

Jet Li was one of the top martial arts actors of the 1990s and 2000s, starring in high-velocity films like Lethal Weapon 4 and Romeo Must Die. He was on top of the world when he took a vacation to the Maldives with his wife, Nina, and their two daughters, Jada and Jane, in 2004. (He has two other daughters from his first marriage.) A trip that was meant to be calm and restorative would end in chaos, as his family narrowly escaped death during the Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 228,000 people.

Now the Beijing-born star, 63, has released one of his most meaningful projects to date: a new book titled Beyond Life and Death: The Way of True Freedom, excerpted below. In it, he reflects on how his family’s brush with death changed his perspective. “Now I realize that maybe I have more meaning in my life—not just showing the world martial arts of beating up the bad guy on the big screen,” Li, whose most recent film, Blades of the Guardians, was released in February, tells People. “I need to take responsibility for helping people.”

In the winter of 2004, our family had made plans to go to the Maldives for our vacation. On our first morning, my two younger daughters, aged 4 and 1, wanted to play in the ocean. Standing in the water while my daughters splashed and laughed, I saw huge waves in the distance. I thought, “What happened to the sea?”