It looks like Donnie Yen will NOT be reprising his role of Wing Chun master Ip Man for the 3rd time, as news is confirmed that - as of this moment - ‘creative differences’ between Yen, Wilson Yip (Director of Ip Man 1 & 2) and original Producer Raymond Wong have led to the much discussed third official chapter Ip Man 3D not moving forward. (Since the success of the original Ip Man movie there have been various ‘unofficial’ sequels/prequels and spin offs including Ip Man: The Legend is Born, Anthony Wong’s Ip Man: The Final Battle and of course Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmasters which was the first official Ip Man production announced back in the early 2000’s).
Yen had openly commented at the release of Ip Man 2 that he felt the character was being over exposed and that he had no wish to return to the role, so we were a little surprised when the official Ip Man 3D announcements were made. But while we won’t be seeing Yen reprise the role Yen will not be absent from the screens for long with an ongoing roster of projects in various stages of production and development.
The troubled Special Identity movie looks set to be finally getting a release soon - we saw some footage from the film and were very impressed by both the fight action between Yen and various opponents including Andy On and Colin Chou, as well as one hell of a car chase that features Yen, On and the film's new female lead fighting above, across, inside and under speeding cars! Yen is currently shooting the now two part epic remake of Clarence Ford’s time travelling swordplay adventure Iceman Cometh, and he will be doing a number of projects with Media Asia through his new SuperHero Films agreement including what sounds like a 70’s take on The Raid with Kowloon Walled City as a group of cops find themselves trapped in the lawless labyrinth, as well as a new project announced with director Teddy Chen of Bodyguards & Assassins.
The project which has a provisional title of One Person’s Martial Arts Circle which will focus on "...one man’s self discovery through martial arts while caught up in a violent world..." which according to Teddy Chen will reflect elements of classic heroic bloodshed movies like The Killer and A Better Tomorrow but with martial arts instead of gunplay.
We’d still like to see Yen returning to the director’s chair, as we were big fans of his earlier directorial outings Legend of the Wolf/The New Big Boss and Ballistic Kiss - both of which were hampered by budgetary restrictions. Since then Yen has action directed and co-directed on various projects, but not focused on being the full director for a project. With the support Yen has now, we’d love to see just what he’s capable of as a director once more.
