I know he's already a star to a lot of you. Hear me out.
Donnie Yen has kicked ass for decades, but never quite branched into the American market the way that Chan or Li did. One could argue that Jet Li in Lethal Weapon 4 & Jackie Chan in Rumble in the Bronx were the last times that Asian martial artists ported over to the American market successfully and started leading their own theatrical films.
Donnie Yen was amazing (and underused) in Blade 2, great in Hero, the Ip Man series, Shanghai Knights and recently Rogue One.
But one thing he did in XXX3 that I've really never seen him do, was bring some stellar personality. He was charismatic as hell, like a Chinese Jason Statham. I just wanted to follow him, watch whatever he was going to do next. In a weird way it was like Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenross, you kinda just want to follow that character instead of the lead, see what their life is like. Unfortunately I can't find a good clip of Yen in that movie that isn't just a fight scene.
I know he's 55 years old now, but hell Liam Neeson was 56 when he did Taken and started a decade of action flicks.
We're at a loss of good action stars these days. If Statham and Johnson do a Furious spinoff, I would pay double ticket price if Donnie Yen was there to kick one of them in the face a few times.
If I were a producer I'd seriously try to develop something for him in the States.
Submitted March 19, 2018 at 11:01AM by girafa http://ift.tt/2G5YUQw
