WELL!!!

This is my favourite Action KUNG FU STAR of all times!!! This is my blog, so, i've intended to share my love for him with the world!!!

Donnie Yen is a famed martial artist, director, fight choreographer and Hong Kong movie hero and is no stranger to on-screen fighting. This Boston native has wielded his fists of fury in such Asian action films as “Tiger Cage 2,” “Dragon Gate Inn” and “The Butterfly Sword.” A long-time cult icon waiting to be cultivated, Yen looks set to win a whole new audience with his Hollywood debut roles in “Highlander: Endgame” and “Blade 2”.Donnie Yen has been labelled as the “Last Dragon” to come out of the old school of famous Hong Kong martial artists.actors like Donnie Yen are the real deal, the ultimate martial artist bringing it on screen. 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.A rebel at heart, Donnie has made his own way.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.

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. Always 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. took up various other styles including the Korean art of Taekwondo. At that time most of his life was spent in and around Boston's 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 really inspired by watching all these movies, and of course there was also the main man, Bruce Lee. 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. 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. While they were all studying various styles, when they got together, they would exchange what they had learnt. So he had this very big varied pool of martial arts to dip into, which has been very useful to him. It's the American way, to be open to everything useful, not like traditional Chinese martial arts culture where you learn one style and that's it. So he had this great mixed-up kung fu background anyway, and then of course the whole Wushu phenomenon came along in the early 1980's.

Beijing Wushu Team came over to America to do a National Tour and when they visited Boston, Donnie was given the opportunity to perform for the team’s two head coaches. They seemed to like what they saw and told him that he had the potential to go on and become a champion in China.

Knowing that if he carried on the way he was carrying on in America at the time, he would either end up as a gangster or wind up dead. Neither of those two options really appealed to him, so he jumped at the chance to train in China. When he finally went to China, he found out that although the two coaches had indeed invited him to go to Beijing and study, it was more out of courtesy than being a genuine invitation. At that time China was still very much closed to the west and when he got there everybody was wearing Mao suits and needed food stamps to eat. So when he arrived, the two coaches froze up. They didn't want to get into any trouble because of him being there but there he was a 16year-old kid who'd just flown halfway around the world to train with them. He was suffering from culture shock and also having a major communication problem. Although he spent his childhood in Hong Kong and could speak Cantonese, and had visited China before, now he was in the middle of China where everybody only spoke Mandarin and nobody really seemed too happy that he was there. But somehow some strings got pulled, and the fact that he'd come all the way over put everybody on the spot and eventually forced them to let him stay and train there. He was the first foreigner to be officially accepted and spent the next two years training and living in Beijing. He had great success in learning Wushu. While training in Beijing, Donnie actually studied with the same master as JET LI!!!

Here Are Some Video Links

(sorry youtube suddenly screwed up. Will update later)

Some fansites:

http://www.donnieyen.com/

http://www.donnieyen.net/

www.fightingmaster.com/actors/donnie_yen/index.htm