Hong Kong director Peter Chan finished shooting movie Wu Xia, a remake of the 1969 classic martial arts movie One Armed Swordsman directed by Zhang Che. Chan got the idea from the film, but he decided to create a new story which is more bloody and cruel. Yes, it looks exacty like this, to see Donnie in so brutal role wanted a lot of fans, so now they have got a chance to do it with a teaser trailer and on August 3 with a full movie.
The rights to the original movie was acquired by Celestial Pictures and the company had an agreement with Peter’s long-time partner, Teddy Chan. Due to a fall-out earlier, Peter will be flying solo and has decided to do a re-telling of One-Armed Swordsman as Wu Xia. His previous films included romance film Waiting and The Warlords starring Andy Lau, Jet Li and Takeshi Kaneshiro, in 2007.
Yen plays a cruel killer who has become a fugitive. But he undergoes a transformation after he is captured by Takeshi Kaneshiro, who played a similar role in Director Zhang Yimou’s martial arts movie House of Flying Daggers.
The film is the first time Donnie Yen and Takeshi Kaneshiro have cooperated on a movie project, and they are excited about the challenges it offers. Yen is also the fight choreographer. Takeshi got fighting training before the shooting begins.
Having last worked with Takeshi Kaneshiro on The Warlords, Peter was very impressed by the actor and thought Takeshi was a perfect fit for the role of a constable in the movie. He even called Takeshi personally to offer the role, to which the star accepted readily.
Takeshi revealed that he took on the role not just because he was interested in the character, but also at the idea that he would get to trade blows with famed martial arts star, Donnie Yen.
Reportedly, the director has employed a very different approach to demonstrate the physicality of martial arts by magnifying some medical and scientific elements in the action choreography. Chan hopes the new project will reboot martial arts in the world’s arena.
This is a major breakthrough for Donnie, since so far he has only been seen in heroic roles like in Ip Man 2 Film. So what do you think about Donnie Yen as a bad guy in Wu Xia?