Age: 63
male
Li Lianjie (李连杰, born April 26, 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a Chinese martial artist, actor, film producer, wushu champion, and international film star who was born in Beijing, China, and who has currently taken up Singapore citizenship. After three years of intensive training with Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team. After retiring from wushu at age 17, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably the Once Upon A Time In China series, in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-hung. Li's first role in a Hollywood film was as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), but his first Hollywood film leading role was in Romeo Must Die (2000). He has gone on to star in many Hollywood action films, most recently starring beside Jackie Chan in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), and as the title character villain in The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008) opposite Brendan Fraser. Recently, he appeared in the 2010 film The Expendables.
As Communist forces sweep across mainland China in 1948–1949, the Nationalist government collapses city by city. Soldiers, officials, intellectuals, and civilians are drawn into a vast, improvised retreat toward the southeast coast. Amid chaos, corruption, heroism, and despair, the remnants of an army and a state struggle to hold together as airfields fall, ports overflow, and families are torn apart. What begins as a temporary withdrawal slowly reveals itself as something far more final. The last act unfolds across the Taiwan Strait. Under constant pressure and dwindling hope of return, the refugees arrive on an island not meant to be a capital, carrying with them the symbols, archives, and unresolved claims of a fallen mainland regime. As Taiwan becomes a place of refuge, tension grows between survival and memory, duty and loss. Exodus ends not with victory or surrender, but with an unfinished war—one side defeated, the other displaced, and a future suspended across the sea.
