15 Best Donnie Yen Movies Ranked According To IMDb

15 Best Donnie Yen Movies, Ranked According To IMDb

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1 15 Best Donnie Yen Movies, Ranked According To IMDb

Donnie Yen has over 35 years of experience in the martial arts movie genre and a fruitful career behind him. Here are his best films, ranked!

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With over 35 years of experience in the martial arts movie genre and proficiency in multiple martial arts styles, Donnie Yen is already a legend. We’re expanding on our original list of his best films with 5 more additions, as ranked by IMDb. Whether new or old, these movies showcase Donnie Yen’s incredible fighting prowess and his equally admirable qualities as an actor.

Updated on August 25th, 2020 by Derek Draven: As mentioned in our updated intro, we’ve added 5 more movies to our existing list of Donnie Yen’s best, as per IMDb rankings. Some of these may be hard to find, so be sure to check an online retailer and secure your copy if you want to see the best of Yen’s versatile film portfolio!

15 Ip Man: 8.0/10

Donnie Yen came back to the limelight with the Ip Man sequels, since Hero. The first installment of Ip Man brought the popular Wing Chun (a Chinese martial arts style) master, Ip Man, to the fans of the Hong Kong movie genre.

The movie was set in the era of the Japanese invasion of China. At first, everything was fine for Ip Man and China as a whole but the Japanese army came and muddled things up. The Chinese are known as hard-willed, they wouldn’t give in to oppression. It’s a story of love, betrayal, and martial arts.

14 Flying Squad: 8.0/10

It’s a 1989 TV action thriller drama series. A TVB production that featured Donnie Yen, Pauline Yeung, and Eddie Kwan. It aired from the 7th to 15th of August, 1989 on TVB Jade, then in January 2016, TVB reran the drama. It’s a series about friendship, love, crime, and betrayal.

Donnie Yen’s character inherited a triad business while his friends delved into the police force. As they are on opposite sides of the law, they found a way to still be friends. But even for the strongest of friendships, things can go south.

13 Hero: 7.9/10

Many of Zhang Yimou’s counterparts respect his prowess with Chinese classic movies. He is a man that loves colors and he didn’t fail in fondling with colors, and his choice of actors in Hero.

Meanwhile, Jet Li claimed that he recommended Donnie Yen for the role of Sky which the director agreed. Donnie Yen and Jet Li did one of the most electric fight scenes in the history of martial arts movies. Jet Li, a nameless warrior, challenged Donnie Yen (sky); though, according to the movie, it was a fake fight. The movie went on to break records in the Asian movie industry.

12 Rogue One: A Star War Story: 7.8/10

Donnie Yen spent some time in Boston, America as a child. It is home to his mother, a martial arts grandmaster. He has even had a few runs in taking roles in American movies so Hollywood’s dynamics aren’t new to him.

Donnie Yen plays Chimrut Imwe, who is a martial arts master and a monk that trusts the force. Though he almost passed on the role as he didn’t like to play a Jedi monk at first. But he did and he made history, Chimrut Imwe made fans of Star Wars fall in love with the franchise more.

11 Ip Man 2: 7.5/10

Anyone would want to Impress the more after having a good run. Donnie Yen wanted more, and his fans wanted more also. Ip Man 2 expands the Ip Man character and portrayed the real Ip Man mannerisms. It featured the late Darren Shahlavi, an exceptional martial artist also, who played a British boxer harassing Chinese martial artists.

At the time, Ip Man and the Chinese martial arts association weren’t on the same page. Donnie Yen, vast in different fighting skill sets, also learned boxing. Therefore, incorporating a Boxer villain was easy.

10 Iron Monkey: 7.5/10

One of Yuen Woo Ping’s master-classes, after the Once Upon A Time In China sequels. Iron Monkey featured Donnie Yuen as the lead actor and Yu Rongguan as a supporting actor. Iron Monkey is one of those movies where the young Donnie Yen dazzled with his martial arts, he is a show-off.

Donnie Yen played Wong Kei Ying, the father of the Chinese martial arts folk hero, Wong Fei hong. Angie Tsang, a young female martial arts champion played the young Wong Fei Hong. Iron Monkey, Yu Rongguang, is a Chinese Robin Hood who steals from the corrupt government and gives it to the poor.

9 Once Upon a Time In China 2: 7.4/10

Once Upon A Time In China 2 is one of the movies that might make Donnie Yen lose some of his fans. He should, however, thank his stars because that was a long time ago. Yen played general Lam, a Chinese general whose mission was to eliminate all revolutionaries and Jet Li played the Chinese martial arts folk hero, Wong Fei hong.

In a story set in the era when some men wanted to liberate China from imperial rule. The imperial government wouldn’t have it with them. The movie has fight scenes of Jet Li and Donnie Yen, and it was incredible. They are used to it, they learned martial arts as a child under the same master.

8 Fist Of Fury: 7.4/10

Every Chinese martial arts actor wants to play the role of Chen Zhen in movies. It’s an honor to play the Jing Wu Athletic Association’s best student. From Bruce Lee, Jet Li to Donnie yen, they must have been elated to be cast as Chen Zhen.

A role first played by Bruce Lee in the early ‘70s, then played by Jet Li in 1995. Donnie Yen played it twice, both in Fist of Fury (1995) and Legend Of The Fist: Return Of Chen Zhen (2010). Set in early Republican China, Chen Zhen and his sister travel to Shanghai to find a better life.

7 Dragon Inn: 7.3/10

Released as New Dragon Gate Inn in Asia, it is a remake of the 1967 Wuxia classic Dragon Gate Inn. Tsui Hark produced it and Raymond Lee directed it. It starred Brigit Lin, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Maggie Cheung, and Donnie Yen.

The movie was set in the desert during the Ming dynasty. Donnie Yen plays a vicious prefect of a section of the country. When Some of the members of his cabinet plotted against him, he executes them and sent their children on exile to lure the others out. New Dragon Gate Inn is a masterclass.

6 The Last Conflict: 7.2/10

It’s a 1988 television film. Another of Raymond Lee’s Hong Kong action crime thriller. It starred Donnie Yen, Stephen Chow, Adia Chan, Francis Ng, Lau Kong, and Andy Tan. It’s a story about friends who are cops and were called up to investigate a forgery case. The story involved love, friendship, rejection, and revenge.

The film ran on TVB and is one of Donnie Yen’s action-packed movies. It may not be on the pedestals of In The Line of Duty or Tiger Cage but its fandom is still happy that they can talk about Donnie Yen’s starting years in the movie industry.

5 Ip Man 4: The Finale: 7.1/10

Donnie Yen wrapped up his iconic martial arts biopic series about the life of famed Wing Chun practitioner and teacher Ip Man with the final installment in 2019. The series went off on a high note with a change of locale to the United States during the 1960s.

The film not only tackled Ip Man’s struggle to bond with his son following his wife’s tragic passing, but also his own mortality after being diagnosed with cancer. Ip Man bravely battles both the disease and the inherent anti-Asian racism of the era in a stunning pitch to unite people regardless of their ethnic background.

4 Dragon: 7.1/10

This 2012 martial arts flick injects a healthy dose of detective film-noir elements to weave a complex and riveting storyline. Donnie Yen stars as a reluctant craftsman who saves two shopkeepers from a pair of criminal gangsters, which ends up attracting all kinds of unwanted attention.

Soon, a detective starts investigating the incident and sets his sights on Yen’s character Liu Jinxi, believing he may have ties to a far more sinister history. The fight scenes and cinematography are top-notch, and the combination of story elements makes it an enjoyable 1 hour and 40-minute romp.

3 Tiger Cage II: 7.0/10

Long before Donnie Yen found himself at the heart of the Star Wars franchise, he was starring in this 1990 Hong Kong martial arts flick directed by world-renowned director Yuen Woo-ping. It’s a fiery action spectacle that centers around Yen playing an ex-cop who finds himself caught up in a robbery gone wrong.

Mistakenly believing he has the money, a vicious gang pursues him and a female lawyer while the cops seek them both for a murder they didn’t commit. It would also feature martial arts alum Robin Shou five years before he was cast as Liu Kang in the 1995 Mortal Kombat live-action film.

2 SPL: Kill Zone: 7.0/10

Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung teamed up in 2010’s Ip Man 2, but it wasn’t their first outing together. This 2005 action film stars Yen as Ma Kwun, a Hong Kong police officer with a dark past who gets caught up in a deadly game of revenge between a vicious gangster and the cop who failed to put him away.

When he becomes a target from both sides, Kwun’s frustration level boils as he struggles to make sense of the mess created by the two vengeful men. It’s a dark story with a tragic ending that sings truth about the evil nature of revenge, and how it can cost a man everything.

1 Wing Chun: 7.0/10

One of Yen’s earliest works is Wing Chun, a 1994 action film also starring Michelle Yeoh as Yim Wing Chun, one of the principal founders of the Wing Chun kung fu fighting style. When her village is set upon by criminals, she uses this brutal fighting style to teach them a lesson, but ends up courting more trouble than she bargained for!

Donnie Yen would revisit the concept of Wing Chun several times throughout his film career, most notably in his role as Ip Man, the Grand Master responsible for spreading the martial art around the world. To this day, it remains one of the most effective forms of kung fu ever devised.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/best-donnie-yen-movies-ranked/

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