Donnie Yen pushes his limits in Wu Xia
Ip Man star Donnie Yen, who is now starring in another blockbuster martial arts film, Wu Xia, said he jumped at the opportunity to work with the movie's director, Peter Chan.
Yen is on tour with Chan to promote the film, and they were at the film's gala premiere at Golden Village Vivocity on Tuesday night.
The Hong Kong actor said he admired Chan's work, which includes many award-winning and top-grossing films such as Perhaps Love, The Warlords, Protégé, and Bodyguards and Assassins.
Wu Xia, which opens in Singapore on 21 July, is already number one on China's box office, beating government-supported propaganda epic about the Communist Party, Beginning of the Great Revival.
Yen, who is also the martial arts choreographer for the movie, said, "It was very difficult to juggle the roles of being an actor and choreographer at the same time for the movie, but I saw this movie as a chance to push my limits."
Yen is considered a late-bloomer in the martial arts scene. His acting career has taken off with a string of recent martial hits such as Ip Man and its sequel, making him a top box-office draw in mainland China.
In the movie, Detective Xu Bai-jiu's (Takeshi Kaneshiro) investigates how unassuming paper maker Liu Jin-xi (Donnie Yen) could kill outlaw Yan Dong Sheng.
Using the results of post mortems and investigations of the scene of the fight, Detective Xu begins to uncover the secrets to Liu's past and discovers that he is no ordinary killer.
Unlike previous martial arts films, Wu Xia has fight scenes which uses cutaways to show the internal effects of each strike on the human body.
Many have compared the movie's style to that of American hit series Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), with some calling it a "scientific martial arts film".
"I was just trying to find new ways to make the film," he said.
Chan, who is also slated to direct 1965, a movie about Singapore's road to independence, said that he has not watched CSI previously.
Most of the inspiration came from the 1969 classic One Armed Swordsman, and Chan wanted to remake it into a film which would push the boundaries of martial arts movies.
Coincidentally, one of Wu Xia's lead actors shot to fame through One Armed Swordsman. Jimmy Wang Yu, widely credited as being Hong Kong's first kung fu star, was invited by Chan to play the role of a master in the movie.
Watch Donnie Yen in August and September on StarHub's Celestial Movies (Ch. 868) in three action films; IP Man, Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen and Dragon Tiger Gate.
