About the Author:
JAMES ROBERT PARISH, a former entertainment reporter, publicist, and book series editor, is the author of many published major biographies and reference books on the entertainment industry including Whitney Houston: We Will Always Love You; The Hollywood Book of Extravagance; It’s Good to Be the King: The Seriously Funny Life of Mel Brooks; The Hollywood Book of Breakups; Fiascos: Hollywood’s Iconic Flops; The Hollywood Book of Scandals; The Hollywood Book of Love; Hollywood Divas; Jet Li; Hollywood Bad Boys; The Encyclopedia of Ethnic Groups in Hollywood; The Hollywood Book of Death; Gus Van Sant; Whoopi Goldberg; Rosie O’Donnell’s Story; The Unofficial “Murder, She Wrote” Casebook; Today’s Black Hollywood; Let’s Talk! America’s Favorite TV Talk Show Hosts; Prison Pictures from Hollywood; Prostitution in Hollywood Films; The Great Cop Pictures; Ghosts and Angels in Hollywood Films; Pirates and Seafaring Swashbucklers on the Hollywood Screen; Gays and Lesbians in Mainstream Cinema; Hollywood’s Great Love Teams; and The Fox Girls. Mr. Parish is a frequent oncamera interviewee on cable and network TV for documentaries on the performing arts. The author resides in Studio City, California.
From Booklist:
Following the trail Jackie Chan blazed, Jet Li is poised to become the next Chinese action star to achieve American success. At 17 Li, a martial-arts child prodigy, starred in his first film, Shaolin Temple (1982). In more than two-dozen subsequent Hong Kong features, especially the Once upon a Time in China series about nineteenth-century folk hero Wong Fei Hung, he became an Asian superstar and a cult star elsewhere, even before his U.S. debut as the villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). Unfortunately, his Hollywood films since have been genre potboilers, lacking the sense of fun and the extended fight sequences that distinguish his Hong Kong movies; and, despite similarly remarkable physical abilities, Li lacks the personality and humor that made Chan a global superstar. Parrish cobbled this book together from 70-odd other published sources, and while it is sloppy, it affectionately informs Li's newer fans about his earlier career. Longtime Li aficionados, however, may find it as lacking as Li's Hollywood flickers have been. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.