Karen Mok and Keanu Reeves Star in “Man of Tai Chi”
The trailer for martial arts film, Man of Tai Chi <太極俠, was unveiled at the Beijing International Film Festival last month. The Chinese-American collaboration is the directorial debut of Keanu Reeves, who appears in the film as well. The cast also includes Karen Mok (莫文蔚), Simon Yam (任達華), and mainland Chinese actor Tiger Chen (陳虎).
In Man of Tai Chi, Karen plays Juanxiu, a female police officer in Hong Kong who has investigated the underground boxing organization, led by Donaka (Keanu Reeves), for many years. Quick-witted and resourceful, Juanxiu is willing to fight to death to expose these illegal boxing matches. She also uses her own methods to rescue and guide male lead Chen Linhu (Tiger Chen), a tai chi practitioner whom Donaka targets in order to turn him into a cold-blooded killer.
At the movie’s worldwide press conference, Keanu joked that his character is a “devil,” whereas Karen’s role is a “female knight” who can be seen as justice incarnated, sent to eradicate the devil. He praised Karen for being a good actress, saying that she tried her best to make every movement perfect, even though she was not a professional martial artist.
Man of Tai Chi is Karen and Keanu’s first collaboration, as well as Karen’s first foray into Hollywood films. She first caught the eye of the movie’s producers due to her mixed ancestry of Chinese, Welsh, German, and Iranian, in addition to her knowledge of the basics of fighting.
When asked to comment on the movie, Karen said she was extremely happy to work with Keanu and that this movie is a challenge for her. She also hopes that in the future, she will have opportunities to appear in more action-themed movies and become the most valiant of martial arts females.
Man of Tai Chi is expected to open in theaters this summer.
“Man of Tai Chi” Trailer
[vsw id=”i9VJZ7cfqfY” source=”youtube” width=”500″ height=”375″ autoplay=”no”]
Source: QQ.com
This article is written by Joanna for JayneStars.com.
Interesting…
I find her a multi-talented woman, what with being musical and multi-lingual as well. Wish her great success in her endeavours into filmdom.
I read her parents are half chinese each and then half or quarter german, welsh, iranian.
I saw pictures of her parents but they look full chinese, not bi-racial.
Did I read wrong or are they more than half chinese each?
i know she looks 100% asian to me.
I am curious how Karen and Keanu got together. Anyway I will watch this, to support Keanu, not Karen.
I find it funny though that everyday I read about Fan Bing Bing and a host of Mainland actors or any asian actress in some huge hollywood production and in the end it is Karen who gets the star treatment from a non-blockbuster movie but nonetheless starring and is produced by a hollywood star.
Anyway she is probably cast because amongst other things she can speak with an english accent.
Agree, whites are very particular about english accent…one must has a good accent to them.
i think she is popular with action movies.
Fan Bing Bing, Li bing Bing, Zhang Ziyi and other Chinese stars acted in big Hollywood productions but they get very little screen time, and are not promoted much.
Only when the promotional trailers are shown in China itself, then they appear more, and the movie version shown in mainland’s cinemas will have more of their presence.
This is despicable of Hollywood, almost like making use of these talented stars for the China market only but ignore them in the US and world markets.
And they might even ‘fear’ having the Asian faces in US promotions will setback their ticket sales!
If I were these stars, I say, f*#k it, and shove off. I don’t need Hollywood.
Even writing this makes me fumed.
Jackie Chan is the only Asian actor who gets equal billing and screen time, no one else.
Welcome to xenophobic America.
And I may add, Hollywood nowadays needs China and the Chinese market more, as for the revenue it can generate for them.
Does China need Hollywood?
Not much, except to ride on their access to world audience to help China win some ‘soft power’
But even then, Hollywood mostly does not project China is positive light, so shove the ‘soft power’ bit as well.
Just watch ‘Karate kid III’ and you get what I mean.
(1) Karen is nonthreatening
(2) she gives hope to hybrids who didn’t turn out like Maggie Q and Isabella Leung
(3) she irritatees some Chinese people so her persistent hirings will keep her in the spotlight
I think that is the Sichuan martial artist who squired Andrew Zimmern around Sichuan and even brought AZ home to his mother on Bizarre Foods. That was a pretty good episode of Bizarre Foods.