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Donnie Yen: the dragon who rises above Asian stereotype in Hollywood
2006-07-30
Jackie Chan and Jet Li may be modern Hollywood's most sought-after kung fu stars, but lesser known Donnie Yen is perhaps the most credible claimant to the mantle of the legendary Bruce Lee. Like the late hero, Yen, whose new movie "Dragon Tiger Gate" was released here Friday, is an ethnic Chinese American who found fame at a young age in Hong Kong with his high-kicking martial arts skills. Yen is also similarly rebellious. As a teenager he regularly fell foul of the law after getting mixed up in street fights. So it is unsurprising that Lee became Yen's idol many years ago. "I wanted to be Bruce Lee because I found someone I could relate to, someone I could look up to," Yen told AFP ahead of a star-studded Hong Kong premier of "Dragon Tiger Gate". Lee only began to realise his commercial potential at the end of his tragically short career, but he is now regarded as one of world cinema's true greats and Hong Kong has belatedly begun to recognise that too. Last week, the city Lee went on to call home marked the 33rd anniversary of his death with a gala event at a statue recently unveiled to honour his contribution to popular culture. "A lot of very successful characters in movies have used the Bruce Lee formula -- the underdog who has been training and suppressed; in the end they arise," said the 43-year-old star of "Blade II" and "Hero". Yen said he tapped into the core elements of Lee's films -- real action, emotion and passion -- to produce "Dragon Tiger Gate", based on a massively popular Hong Kong comic series in the 1970s. For a start, he promises true combat scenes with few special effects. "It's very difficult to make films with convincing martial arts," said Yen, who choreographed the action. "People think it is enough to cast a couple of idols or train the actors for a couple months. But the audiences can see through that." Yen said he demanded intensive training from the two main actors in the movie, rebel pop star Nicholas Tse and Shawn Yue, who had little kung fu experience before this movie. But "the truth is it's impossible" to do without proper martial artists, added Yen. -- Gang member -- Born in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Yen came to Hong Kong at the age of two and later moved to the US, growing up in Boston's Chinatown. Much of the star's inspiration comes from his mother, Bow Sim-Mark, a world famous Wushu and Tai Chi master, at whose internationally-known Chinese Wushu Research Institute the young Yen learned kung fu. "Very early on, I discovered that I was very gifted in expressing my body and physical movements with martial arts, I spent a lot of time with it," he said. But it has been a tough career path and repeated blows have left Yen with a disjointed nose, a snapped tendon in his shoulder and regular back pain. He had ample opportunity to put his skills to use as a youngster, running with a gang in the mean streets of Boston's notorious Combat Zone where fighting was routine. Concerned for his future, his parents sent the then 16-year-old Yen to Beijing where he spent two years training with the famed Beijing Wushu Team, studying with the same masters as Jet Li. "I wanted to leave (the US) because if I had continued that way, I know I would have ended up like some of the friends I was associating with: they were killed, they were in jail..." said Yen, also a classical pianist. The turning point for him came when veteran film director Yuen Wo-ping, the action choreographer for the "Matrix" trilogy who launched the career of Jackie Chan, discovered Yen and helped him break into movies as the new kung fu hero. Yuen cast Yen in 1984's "Drunken Tai Chi" and his career took off. -- Hollywood stereotypes -- Now credited with more than 40 films and being the first Hong Kong Chinese filmmaker to co-direct a German TV series, "Codename: Puma", Yen hopes to use his celebrity to fight a long-standing off-screen battle to kick the Asian stereotype out of Hollywood. In the mid-1990s, Yen turned down an offer from Francis Ford Coppola because of scripts which he said contained "a ridiculous stereotype about the Chinese". He also rejected an offer to play in the Tomb Raider sequel, which China banned for making the country appear lawless and run by secret societies. "I couldn't play it. That, truthfully speaking, disgraced the Chinese," he said. "A lot of these people (in Hollywood) are actually quite ignorant about other cultures, that's the strangest thing ... they truly believe they understand other cultures and their point of view. "But it's incorrect culture and incorrect knowledge. I got that all the time. I try my best on a personal level to correct that whenever I come across these prejudices," he said. Yen is drawing on Bruce Lee's legacy in his quest. "Before Bruce Lee, Asians were always perceived as of secondary importance and had negative images. Bruce Lee was the first one who came forward and represented a very strong, confident and positive individual and that's why he was so great," Yen said. "Lee spoke a universal language, all races love him. He represents a certain strength for society, showing that you can make it, you can do it too." So far, he said, his mission appeared to be working. "(Job offers) still come forward and each time they come forward, they come with a lot more respect, for me and for the Chinese culture," Yen said. "The tiger is growing and playing one of the most important roles in the world now. They can't deny that."
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