John Wick: Chapter 4 standout Donnie Yen has revealed a trio of new projects, all of which have been announced by the Hong Kong-based Mandarin Motion Pictures during Cannes Market, and one of them is Ip Man 5. The actor and martial artist took to social media to share posters for each of the new projects, with the Ip Man 5 first look teasing the sort of one-man-army battle that fans of the franchise have come to know and love.
Alongside the poster for Ip Man 5, Yen shared a first look at the follow-up to the 2007 action flick Flash Point, titled Flash Point Resurgence, which will likely find Yen’s Detective Sergeant Ma Jun taking on another dangerous case that only he can solve.The third and final project, Misjudgement, is much more mysterious.
Beginning in 2008 with the first Ip Man, the franchise has become one of Yen’s most successful, and follows the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun and teacher of Bruce Lee. The last we saw of the series was in 2019’s Ip Man 4: The Finale. As it turns out, calling it ‘The Finale’ turned out to be a little hasty.
The news of these projects will come as music to the ears of Donnie Yen fans. You can already hear the orchestra of rapid punches and kicks that will fill auditoriums as this trio of new movies once again put one of Hong Kong cinemas best-loved stars at their center.
Donnie Yen Is Hoping to Lead a John Wick Spinoff
Donnie Yen recently joined one of the biggest action franchises of all time, starring as the blind assassin Caine in this year’s John Wick: Chapter 4. And many agreed that he stole the show. Now, with plans for the John Wick series to expand into spinoffs, Yen is hoping to lead his own Caine-centered project. Something that action fans would no doubt love to see. “I’d love to do a John Wick spinoff centered around Caine,” Yen said recently. Asked whether there had been any discussions behind-the-scenes regarding such a project, Yen coyly responded, “There’s always ‘talks’ in Hollywood.”
Caine is a character that Yen had a lot of influence on, with the actor suggesting that he should be blind and thus an homage to the idea of ‘the blind swordsman’ as seen in such movies as Zatōichi. Not only that, Yen insisted on making changes to the character, who was initially presented to him as something far too stereotypical. “The name was Shang or Chang. Why does he always have to be called Shang or Chang? Why can’t he have a normal name? Why do you have to be so generic?” he revealed. “Then the wardrobe again—oh, mandarin collars. Why is everything so generic? This is a John Wick movie. Everybody’s supposed to be cool and fashionable. Why can’t he look cool and fashionable?”
Starring Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård, Laurence Fishburne, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Lance Reddick, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Clancy Brown, and Ian McShane, John Wick: Chapter 4 is scheduled to be released on digital May 23, 2023, and on Blu-Ray, 4K UHD, and DVD on June 13, 2023.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
