Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen are two of the biggest martial arts stars in the world, and they have clashed in kung fu battles twice in recent years. Throughout his very long career, Kung Fu star Jackie Chan has brought equal amounts of thrills and laughter to audiences with his penchant for action-comedies filled with martial arts and death-defying stunts. Chan’s physical level of dedication is also unmatched:
Donnie Yen has also been in the business since the mid-80s, but only really broke through in the mid-2000s when he introduced MMA to Hong Kong action films through Sha Po Lan and Flashpoint. Yen’s portrayal of the eponymous Wing Chun grandmaster and mentor to the legendary Bruce Lee in the Ip Man films would go on to make him a household name for Western audiences. Both Chan and Yen still act in action films, although Chan’s roles are now much less labor intensive due to the countless injuries he has endured throughout his career.
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Both Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen have fought many formidable villains and the occasional hero in their action movie careers. Naturally, sooner or later, Chan and Ian had to face off on the big screen, and the pair ended up fighting twice. Here are the Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen fight scenes and the movies they feature in.
Shanghai Knights (2003)
Shanghai Knights came at the height of Jackie Chan’s conquest of Hollywood and is widely considered one of his best Western action comedies. At the same time, Donnie Yen, who was still far from Western fame after Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the spy film xXx: Return of Xander Cage, at that time starred in only two other American films – Highlander: Endgame ” and “Blade”. II. This introduced Yen as a relatively fresh face to Western audiences and thus provided the perfect backdrop for the A-list presence of Chan and Owen Wilson in Shanghai Knights. Set in 1887, Shanghai Knights sees Chan’s Chung Wang, now the sheriff of Carson
City, Nevada, on a mission to London to avenge his father’s murder and stop a plot to assassinate the royal family.
Donnie Yen appears as the film’s minor villain, Wu Chou, who is sent to kill the royal family in order to obtain the Imperial Seal of China. Compared to Chan’s usual comedic Buster Keaton-inspired fight scenes in Shanghai Knights, his and Ian’s kung fu fight is the simplest martial arts fight in the film and really shows what Ian could do better than any American film of that time. time.
Twins Effect II (2004)
There’s certainly a sense of satisfaction when Chan and Yen come face to face in Twins Effect II (the Western release of Blade of Kings). Yen plays General Lone, a warrior seeking to free the land of Huadu from the tyrannical rule of an evil queen. His journey will take him on an adventure with many allies and enemies until he finally meets the last person standing in his way, Chan. Chan and Yen’s second big screen fight is in every way the opposite of their fight in Shanghai Knights, as it involves more use of guns and, in particular, puts Chan in entirely new territory. Chan isn’t exactly known for his wuxia and high-wire fu action, but the former
Enter the Dragon stuntman handles somewhat foreign territory well. It’s always fun to see Chan dive into new waters and reinvent his personality, and his fight with Donn Yen in The Twin Effect II is an example of just that in a showdown between two martial arts legends. Although Chan doesn’t perform head-first stunts off buildings as often these days, and Ip Man Yen’s movie days are over, the pair have left a legacy as action stars and martial artists around the world, meaning fans of both Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen.