Donnie come lately

Donnie Yen Rocks!

Care to remember the kung-fu master in a breakdance moment?



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Donnie come lately
Actor Donnie Yen goes from Ip Man to leading man in, oh, 26 years
IHT
Source - Straits Times 03 September 2009


SHANGHAI - FOR the past 26 years, Donnie Yen has developed a dedicated following in Asia for his impressive martial arts skills and a cult status internationally for his roles in popular action movies, including Once Upon A Time In China II and Hero. But until recently, he had, he said, 'never tasted what it meant to be a superstar'.

Instead, in big-budget movies, he often played in the shadow of established stars such as Jet Li and Jackie Chan.

But with Painted Skin and Ip Man, two box-office successes last year, Yen's star is finally rising.

'He's been around as long as the two Js,' said Mr Daniel Yun, outgoing managing director of MediaCorp Raintree Pictures, referring to Li and Chan. 'For a long time, he was the third choice; but with his films making big money at the box office, he's become the leading man to watch.'

Painted Skin, which was co-produced by Raintree, grossed 230 million yuan (S$48.57 million) in China last year, making it the second most successful film of the year there behind Red Cliff.

Yen, 46, seems to approach his newfound success with healthy scepticism.

In a recent interview in Shanghai, where he was filming his final scene for Bodyguards & Assassins, a big-budget period action film produced by Peter Chan, he commented that he had 'a lot of new friends' now - whereas in the late 1990s, he could not find anybody to help finance Ballistic Kiss, his second film as a director and producer.

'Now all the producers are calling me and I have films lined up all the way to 2012,' he said. 'It's beginning to sink in that after 26 years in the industry, I'm finally getting my break.'

Yen, who also recently finished work on 14 Blades, a Ming-era martial arts movie, acknowledges that he has tended to avoid expanding his acting abilities. He believes that directors never really encouraged him to act.

'It was more 'come in, fight, look cool, show your muscles',' he said, laughing. -- INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE