Fighting his way to the top

"Many Hollywood stars such as Robert De Niro are big fans of Chinese kung fu. And I believe the unique charm of Wing Chun will attract even more Westerners."

But despite kung fu movies having a wide fan base in the West, Yen feels English speakers find it difficult to understand the values in the martial arts movies.

From his point of view, martial arts movies－a part of Chinese culture－require the audience to have a deep knowledge of China's history, art and philosophy.

For most action fans though, the most anticipated scene in the film is the fight between Yen and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who plays a corrupt property developer manipulating an illegal boxing market..

Tyson, who reveals that the movie marks his films debut, said at a recent media event in China that acting is kind of rebirth for him.

Yen says he had a lot of discussions about modern combat with Tyson during their shooting stints that overlapped.

"They (the producers) had a commercial motive in using Tyson in the film. But what concerned me was how to make our three-minute fight convincing," he says.

"Tyson is too fast for the audience to clearly see what happens. So sometimes we purposely slowed down things."

It seems Yen has more such cross-cultural encounters ahead.

Yen has recently taken the place of Jet Li to co-star with American actor Vin Diesel in the action sequel, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.