Donnie Yen has been labelled as the “Last Dragon” to come out of the old school of famous Hong Kong martial artists. You have actors like Keanu Reeves or Cameron Diaz trying to throw a couple of kicks. But actors like Donnie Yen are the real deal, the ultimate martial artist bringing it on screen. It seems that along with Jackie Chan and Jet Li, they are the last of their kind.
Known for his good looks and probably the fastest legs in the business, Yen’s unique style of fighting is quite unpredictable as he effortlessly shifts gears of motion. One moment the audience is magnetized by his liquid motion, as his movements and form are hypnotically fluid and dance-like. And within moments, Donnie's fighting style has been transformed to a state of unparalleled speed and raw power without sacrificing proper technique. Donnie Yen has the education and experience to transcend boundaries between Hollywood, East and West. Fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin; born on the Mainland but grew up in Hong Kong and later in Boston; spent his recent years in Hong Kong, and is now based between L.A. and New York, he gives new meaning to the phrase “man of the world.
His movies reflect his personal intensity and drive as well as the life of the world he observes around him. Filmmaking for Yen is pace and flow, the flow of images, the flow of music, and the flow of communication between the art and the audience.' We strongly believe that today he is the best martial arts actor, equal if not better than Jackie Chan and Jet Li in their prime. We were very disappointed to see that Wesley Snipes did not take advantage of such a talent in Blade 2. Donnie’s role was far too short. If they fought together, it could have just been one of the best fights ever filmed. A rebel at heart, Donnie has made his own way. The road ahead hasn't always run smooth. Direct and honest in his opinions, he's probably made it harder on himself. The journey has shaped not only who he is today but the vision of the films he has directed.
Action Icon Donnie Yen
Action icon Donnie Yen exploded onto the Hong Kong movie scene when he was cast in the lead role of director Yuen Woo-ping’s ‘Drunken Tai Chi’. Yen, the son of Boston based kung fu instructor Bow Sim-mark, was tailor-made for the jade screen, having trained in martial arts since early childhood. With a solid foundation in his mother’s Wushu style, the teenaged Donnie had gone on to study a wide variety of different fighting arts, including karate and Western boxing.
His debut film immediately established him as a viable leading man, and Yen has remained a major figure in Chinese action cinema to this day. Born in Canton but raised in Boston, Yen has always been unique among martial arts stars in that his persona balances both the martial virtues of his mother and the scholarly and musical ones of his father, Klysler. Aside from his training in the various combative systems, Yen is also a gifted pianist, and critics have noted the musical phrasing and tempo of his performances and action set pieces. In his younger days, Yen was also a skilled street dancer, and showed off his moves, as well as his general athleticism, in his second starring role, ‘Mismatched Couples’, produced by Hong Kong’s prestigious Cinema City studio.
Donnie was subsequently signed by the newly formed D&B Films, and cast in the hit cop actioner ‘Tiger Cage’. In this movie, and his follow-up features for the company (‘In the Line of Duty 4’, ‘Tiger Cage 2’), Yen showed off his own unique form of contemporary screen combat, a form that included elements of rapid fire kicking, Western boxing and grappling moves. Having established a worldwide fan base, Yen moved on to star in a string of independent action features before director Tsui Hark tapped him to co-star in ‘Once Upon A Time In China 2’. The film brought Yen his first real attention as a thespian; he was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category at that year’s Hong Kong Film Awards.
Early Days
Donnie Yen Chi Tan was born in Canton in Mainland China. When he was about one and a half years old, he immigrated to Hong Kong with his father. His mother Bow Sim-Mark couldn't get permission to leave China at that time, and it was to be another eight years before they would be reunited as a family. During that time he met his mother once when he went back to China, so he could see what she looked like! When she finally came to Hong Kong, they lived there for about another two years before their whole family relocated to America and settled in Boston when he was about 11 years old. Donnie Yen's mother began training her son in the martial arts almost as soon as he could walk (4 years old). When Don went to visit his mother in China, she would teach him a few basics, as would her teacher, but it wasn’t until they'd moved to America and she started the Chinese Wushu Research Institute, that he really started studying the martial arts. With his mother, he mastered traditional and modern Chinese Wushu and Tai Chi, understanding internal and external principles. His mother was teaching him in the very traditional Chinese way, very conservative. Like most kids he was quite rebellious, especially against anything that was conservative or restrictive. He was always questioning; looking for the ultimate martial art.
So he would run away from his mother's school and hang out with his friends who were studying other martial arts, even going to their schools sometimes and learning from them. He took up various other styles including the Korean art of Taekwondo. At that time most of his life was spent in and around Chinatown, so he was also watching a lot of Chinese movies, and this was when the Kung Fu Movie industry was at its peak.
He was then, and still is, Yen’s idol. Bruce had a lot of influence on him, not only in the martial arts but a lot of other things. They kind of have some similarities in their backgrounds: they both came to America from Hong Kong, established lives for themselves in the US before going back to work in Hong Kong, etc. Bruce Lee has always been a big inspiration to him; Donnie thinks of him as a kind of mentor. He would watch all these movies, try and find out what styles were what, what looked good, what worked and what didn't. He read all the magazines and books on martial arts that he could get his hands on, and he'd always question things.
Why do you have to throw this kick like this? Can you do it another way that's better? His mother started his training by teaching him Northern Shaolin which has a lot of similarities to Wushu, Tai Chi and Wu Dang styles but he has dabbled with Wing Chun, Taekwondo, Karate, Praying Mantis and a lot more. He was Kung Fu crazy for a long time; he'd skip school to practice martial arts with his friends. They’d draw a circle in the park, and practice Chi-Sao for hours; they'd beat each other up doing Mantis. And he was very much into Bruce Lee; he would be walking around in the full Bruce Lee get-up: kung fu uniform, sunglasses, and nunchucks in his socks. He was lucky that he had exposure to so many different styles and that he had so many friends who were into martial arts.
