Donnie Yen is gone, too? He was a pretty good fighter. Very adaptive. I wished he lived a little longer on Blade II(and playing Snowman mute was also impressive). This was a cool clip.
Donnie Yen is still very much around as far as i'm aware. He's moved behind the camera nowadays doing more directing and choreography.
I just checked. He is 51 and still kicking; so to speak. He has another film that is coming to DVD/Blu-Ray called 14 Blades.
I'm just the opposite. I'm more of a Li fan. I didn't become a serious Yen fan until Ip Man. I did dig The Iron Monkey though.
Most of the newer fu movies suck because they have too Much of a Mainland Chinese influence. PRC pretty much has the HK industry lock him and barrel, so you see Mainland propaganda and mainland culture as opposed to pre-'97 films. The Cantonese culture is slowly dying. For me its the classics up to 1993. To be fair, there were straggling remnants until 1996. Donnie has skills, but his Bruce Lee mannerisms held back from being bigger than he was.
I admire all the Hong Kong action stars like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Jimmy Wang Yu, Bolo Yeung, Sammo Hung, Gordon Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, Chow Yun Fat and others. The film The Legend of The Flying Guillotine inspired many of the fighting video games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. It was said that the film The Duel Of The Iron Fist(or The Duel) was the first of the Hong Kong action films. I have long admired the work of John Woo(The Killer and Hard Boiled were my favorites) I am not quite sure about that claim. But lately, the Hong Kong action film genre has been challenged by the films from South Korea, Japan and Thailand. But the film Kill Zone with Donnie Yen, Simon Yam and Sammo Hung sort of brought the thrill of the genre back. Now there are two films I had seen that were pretty good. They are: 1. Infernal Affairs. 2. The Fire Of Conscience. I recommend them both.
I'll have to check those out. I've been lost on this new age filming. The Duel was pretty cool though. Along with Storm Riders.
If you look at The Man With The Iron Fists, that film had element of The Duel, Five Fingers Of Death and Ninja Scroll. David Chiang was cool as the "Killer Who Coughs." He was also in a film that became the first in which I discovered him called The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires(also called Seven Brothers Vs. Dracula) with Peter Cushing. It was a Shaw Brothers co-production with Hammer Films. There were a few problems during the production between the director Terence Fisher(I think) and the Shaw Brothers. Hammer won the argument. Chiang was also in another film called Shaolin Temple.
I forgot that The Five Deadly Venoms was another film that inspired The Man With The Iron Fists, too.
Especially the song sung by Sally Yeh from John Woo's The Killer during the Pink Lotus stage sequence. Wu Tang as in Rza, right? Well Rza and Eli Roth(he had a small role as the executioner at the beginning of The Man With The Iron Fists) wrote the screenplay and had it "blessed" by Quentin Tarantino.