He is afraid that kids got the wrong idea

Jet Li has been distressed at his encounters with young people, not only in China but also around the globe.

“On the street, I see a lot of young teenagers saying, ‘Hey, Jet Li. Beat up somebody! Fight! Fight!’ ” he says.

“It makes me think that they think Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li only know how to beat up somebody.”

After making martial-arts movies for 26 years, the 43-year-old actor is ringing down the curtain on that part of his career with “Jet Li’s Fearless.”

It contains a message for those young people.

“In this movie and in my past three movies, I continue to say that violence is not any solution,” the energetic actor says.

While it may be his last martial arts film, that doesn’t mean Li has retired from acting or from action movies. He recently completed “Rogue,” a thriller involving the FBI and the Mafia.

“There are car chases, gunshots,” he says. “It’s physical contact, but not martial arts.”

“Fearless” tells the story of Chinese martial-arts master Huo Yuanjia, who in the early years of the 20th century became the most famous fighter in his country.

As a young man, he is unbeatable, but as his fame grows, so does his pride. After one of his bouts leaves another master dead, members of Huo’s family are slaughtered in revenge, including his beloved young daughter.

Drifting through the countryside in shock, Huo is rescued from near-death by women from a peaceful country village. Their simplicity and kindness lead him to realize that martial arts is about sportsmanship, not brutality.

Like Huo, Li says he has realized that the true spirit of martial arts – “wushu,” as it is known in China – has fallen by the wayside.

The true meaning of “wushu” actually is “stop fighting,” Li says. So he felt Huo’s life story was the perfect project to share his personal beliefs “and show the whole martial arts, not just as a physical (sport). We have a lot of action sequences in the movie, but we also honor the beliefs. I say everything in the film.”

Li has donated money to the Chinese Red Cross and spoken to teenagers to encourage them to find honor in themselves. He has been horrified over the number of suicides by young Chinese people, which in 2003 numbered about 280,000.

One sequence in “Fearless” hit close to home for Li: when Huo is weeping over his daughter’s lifeless body.

Director Ronny Yu told Li to remember his near-death experience with his young daughter in the 2004 tsunami that devastated southern Asia.

As he held his daughter over his head, Li recalled, “the water was coming to my mouth. It was a very dangerous situation. If God made the water one step higher, I would have died.

“But I am still alive. That is why I try to do my best to help everybody.”

The birthday bunch

Sportscaster Jim McKay is 85. Actress Sheila MacRae is 82. Actor Gordon Clapp (“NYPD Blue”) is 58. Actor Kevin Sorbo (“Hercules: Legendary Journeys”) is 48. Actress Nia Vardalos (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) is 44. Actor Kyle Sullivan (“Malcolm in the Middle”) is 18.