Donnie Yen Celebrates 50th Birthday

Filming is underway for Donnie Yen’s (甄子丹) new contemporary action thriller Last of the Best <一個人的武林>. At yesterday’s blessing ceremony, Director Teddy Chan (陳德森) and cast members Charlie Yeung (楊采妮), Wang Baoqiang (王寶強), Alex Fong Chung Shun (方中信), Deep Ng (吳浩康) and Bai Bing (白冰) were present. As July 27 will be Donnie’s 50^th birthday, Teddy brought out a birthday cake with Donnie’s character figurine on it.

Though a known workaholic, Donnie believes in taking rests. “In a year, there will be a few occasions that I will not work, such as my wife’s birthday, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. On my birthday, I will definitely stop all projects as we cannot be working every day.”

In Last of the Best, Donnie stars as Xia, a former martial arts instructor of the Police Academy who went to prison after he accidentally kills a man during a private confrontation. The movie will pay tribute to past action masters.  Donnie does not feel pressured and supports paying respect to past stars.

Asked about filming with Charlie Yeung, Donnie replied “It does not matter if the actress has martial arts experience or not. As long as they are female artists, I will accommodate them. A gentleman should do this. When I was filming with Kara Hui (惠英紅) on the set for Dragon <武俠>, I did not treat her as a man either.”

In this movie, Charlie portrays a policewoman; hence she will only be using a gun and would not be engaged in fights. She attended class on firearms before, which hopefully will help in her action scenes. When Charlie saw Donnie shooting a fighting scene, she admired his agility. Asked about kissing opportunities with Donnie, Charlie said, “We do not share this kind of affiliation, but I will have a bit of relationship with Alex instead.”

When taking photos with Charlie, Alex mischievously said that he finally has the chance to act with his childhood goddess. He said, “I am only 30-something; it’s like a puppy love feeling and all my confidence is back. I remember when I started my career, I had filmed with Charlie once where I was the MV male lead. To me, she still looks the same, still so pretty.” As for kissing scenes with Charlie, Alex said, “If there is, it would be perfect, but I am not the script writer, so it’s hard to add it in!”

Source: Ming Pao

This article is written by Jennifer for JayneStars.com.