By Thomas Chau in New York City

In the two years that “Hero” has spent thrilling audiences around the world, the phenomenon finally arrives in the United States this weekend, as it opens nationwide from Miramax Films.

“Hero” is the most expensive Chinese movie ever made, but has scored phenomenal success in both Asian and European countries. From director Zhang Yimou comes a story set in ancient China, where a nameless warrior (Jet Li) arrives at the palace of the Qin ruler, a fierce and ruthless king. The warrior claims that he has murdered the king’s three most sought after assassins: “Flying Snow,” “Broken Sword,” and “Sky.” He then proceeds to tell his story of betrayal, treachery, honor, and love.

Jet Li has been a childhood hero of mine and so being able to sit down and chat with him was an incredible joy and a dream come true. I was intrigued by what he had to say about the movie and martial arts, so below is what he had to say about the movie finally opening in the United States.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Because Jet Li is still in the process of becoming fluent in English, much of the following dialogue was reworded to make his ideas more clear for our readers.)

Q: Are you glad to see that the movie is finally coming out in the United States after two years?

JET LI: Yeah. Of course, we hoped that one day, people can see this film in theaters. Everybody knows that this film has already been shown in Asia and Europe two years ago. A lot of American audiences, especially Asian audiences who love to see Hong Kong films, have already seen it on DVD. A lot of my friends have seen it already on DVD! I still hope they go to the theaters to see the film because it’s quite a special movie. If you watch this film in the theater - the sound, the color, the special effects, everything.

Q: “Hero” doesn’t follow the typical martial arts formula in a film. It has much more of a story than you traditionally see…

JET LI: When I read the script, I cried twice. First of all, it had very strong characters. They gave control over their lives to get closer to the king in order to try to kill the king. That kind of feeling is very strong and we don’t see that in a lot of stories like this. Second of all, I make a lot of commercial action films where there is a good guy and he has a lot of family problems, so he goes to the mountains to learn martial arts and come back and kill the bad guys. Right? Usually, that’s the action formula. But this film is the one I’ve been looking forward to for many years. Violence isn’t the only solution. Maybe it’s a different way to solve the problem but I don’t need to use violence to tell a non-violent story. In this movie, you don’t find a bad guy. You just have people with different opinions and points-of-view to see the whole story. In the last 40 minutes, there is no fighting, just talk.

Q: You mention that it isn’t clear who the villain is but at the same time, we’re not too clear on who the hero is in this movie either, because you could potentially look at any of these characters as heroes. Can you talk about the nature of heroism that this movie tries to portray?

JET LI: I think that this movie is made for different people. People of different ages get different results. In different cultures, people get different results also. For younger audiences, they look at the good pictures and the fighting. For the people who have a good education where they know more about Asian culture, [they recognize] the background, the loyalty, the friendship, dying for love, and they get more information. If you go to the next level, you can see what the highest [level of] martial arts mean. What is a ‘hero’? Maybe the teenagers say, “The man with the girl who love each other and die for each other. That is my hero.” But maybe another guy likes revenge and says that at the end of the day, that is a hero. Then you could say that the king is a hero because he unified the country. It’s the audience decision.

In my personal opinion, I do not want to see a hero in our life because when we need a hero, it’s when we got a problem. Maybe it’s from people hurting each other or two countries hurting each other. Or maybe the nature gods are giving us problems, like fire, earthquakes. When we need a strong man to protect us, we need a hero. If everybody living on earth was happy, why would we need a hero? I don’t want to see a hero. If something bad happens, we still need a hero, but we don’t want to see one. If we didn’t have one, that means we are at peace.

Q: How did you train for this role?

JET LI: I spent six months in China. I worked with the whole crew and also the director to discover this character. My character is the only character in the whole story who grew up because all the other characters are straight forward from beginning to the end. [Their thinking] is the same way. My character – his parents died, his country was destroyed by the king, and he learned martial arts to try to kill the king. Through this journey, he might of made a few friends and he slowly changes, until the end of the movie when he still hasn’t decided whether or not to kill the king.

There were a lot of [other] things too. I studied a lot of details from the beginning, like how to walk 2,000 years ago; how they move their arms, when they don’t move, how they run, how to smile, how to raise their swords.

Q: How do you use the martial arts to tell the story?

JET LI: Martial arts have three levels in this film. The first level is soul and what’s part of your body. We talk about skills. If your skills are good enough, then your weapon is part of your body. If you can control your body really well, then it’s a weapon. The second level is without a weapon. Your heart becomes a weapon. Through your language, imagination, or heart, you can scare them and run away. In real life, if a person doesn’t know martial arts, but he’s tough, then you don’t need to fight. Between two countries, you could use conversation to stop the war before it starts. That’s the second level. But the third level is only love. Now, we’re talking about religion level. It’s all around the world, whether it’s Jesus or Buddhism or whatever. We’re talking about love. If I always love you, why would you hate me or beat me? We’re talking about the highest level of martial arts which is close to religion. All the religions around the world talk about love. It’s the most powerful thing. Only love can change you. Forget angry, love is the most powerful.

Q: That would make for a very different kind of movie: a martial arts film about love and non-violence? Would you like to do that kind of movie?

JET LI: Yeah, I want to one day seek this kind of film, but it’s difficult right? If you were to tell someone this, they’d laugh HAHAHAHA. You need to find the right way to do the right thing.

Q: Do you see yourself as a hero, in a way, to kids who love your movies?

JET LI: No, I’m not a hero. I’m really just a guy who has always showed love. But I’ve played some characters who may be tough men. They’re strong, they’re tough, but not Jet Li. Jet Li always smiles. I never think about using martial arts in real life to hurt people. A lot of people say, “What about on a street if somebody wants to beat you up?” I say you can take me down in a few seconds because I never want to return revenge.

Q: Has that ever happened where guys wanted to fight you just to see how tough you are?

JET LI: That’s never happened because I never say that I’m the best fighter in the world. I always say I’m just an actor. If you want to beat me, you beat me. If you’re happy, you can beat me again. It doesn’t matter. That’s the highest level of martial arts; to be able to control your anger and control your love.

Q: Do you want to continue to make movies in both China and U.S.?

JET LI: I think a lot of people like to ask that question. I believe that if a movie is made in China, or Europe, or in the States, it is no different. It’s only if they want to show it for a worldwide audience. Everybody tries to make a worldwide movie. I think I need to find a balance. American studios think that Jet Li can make [a certain] kind of film but in Asia and Europe, I have more space to control my movies. I can create this kind of movie or another kind of movie. Like “Hero,” if I showed the script to [American] studios, then maybe nobody would have made it. They don’t understand but this movie is finished and I need to prove that in Asia, it was very successful and in Europe, it was good. I need to prove that I can make this kind of film and it can still make money for the studios. Like “Danny the Dog”; I tried to make it an American film but no studios supported it. I made that film [in Europe] with Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, and Luc Besson. I came back and showed that film to studios and they loved it. But they say that they don’t know how to market the movie. Is it an action movie or drama? How do you cross that border to say that it’s drama with action in it? But finally Focus Features said that they would take a chance and release it next spring.

Q: Will we ever see you work with Jackie Chan on screen?

JET LI: I don’t know. We tried to make a movie ten years ago in Hong Kong but something happened and we didn’t make it. A few years ago, the studio wanted to make the film again and something happened and we didn’t make it. I can’t guarantee it. I don’t know.

Q: If you could have one superhero power, what would you choose?

JET LI: I will take care of all the suffering from the people. Like AIDS, cancer - anything we cannot cure.

"Hero" opens nationwide this Friday.