May the fourth be with you? Yet more Donnie Yen news as he and Wilson Yip formally announce ‘Ip Man 4’, a return to the character that’s been such an iconic eastern cinematic franchise…
There’s no slowing Donnie Yen down. He has his upcoming releases including Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Triple X: The Return of Xander Cage, in the near future… and just begun shooting the epic Chasing the Dragon crime drama… and now he has released a photo of himself with his longtime directing partner Wilson Yip confirming the two will be collaborating on… Ip Man 4.
“I want to share this very excited news with you all, my good friend Wilson Yip, who had directed all of my last three Ip Man series, tonight, we have decided to reunite and continue to make our next project together, Ip Man 4! Yes, I-P-M-A-N part 4!”
A few years ago it seemed as if Donnie might be hanging up his butterfly swords for good with regards to playing the Wing Chun master and martial arts mentor of Bruce Lee. After completing Ip Man 2, Yen felt the character had been overexposed in the media with various incarnations of the character turning up in everything from Wong Kar-ai’s The Grandmasters and ‘alternate universe’ spin offs including: Young Ip Man, Ip Man: The Final Fight etc. And even Yen’s return to the character in Ip Man 3 was spoken of as a possible final outing – as not only the character himself, but perhaps even Yen’s final full blooded martial arts movie, especially as Yen spoke of the injuries he has received during a life of action.
There’s no word yet on a storyline or additional cast or crew for the fourth installment, or, indeed any idea of when it might shoot, merely the intention of continuing the lucrative franchise. (Meanwhile Yen’s Ip Man 3 co-star Max Zhang (SPL 2) is being groomed for a spin-off movie featuring his character from the third film). Beyond those mentioned above, Yen has a number of projects he is linked to including The Raid’esque Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong’s Indiana Jones’esque adventurer Wisely, Noodle Man, and a possible Flash Point sequel.
We’d love to see Yen returning to the director’s chair, as we still feel that Legend of the Wolf and Ballistic Kiss, showed some incredible visual storytelling and ideas, that were hampered by the budgets Yen was working with at the time.
Legend of the Wolf trailer:
