Donnie Yen talks about gangster epic Chasing the Dragon and reuniting with Wong Jing for Enter the Fat Dragon

It would not be an overstatement to say that Donnie Yen Ji-dan is having the time of his life. In the less than two years since Ip Man 3 (2015) became a major hit in China, the Hong Kong-based actor has also tasted Hollywood stardom with eye-catching roles in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and xXx: Return of Xander Cage .

With leading parts in Ip Man 4 and the Hollywood project Sleeping Dogs on the horizon, Yen somehow makes the most offbeat decisions: to star in a film (Chasing the Dragon) by Wong Jing – once the godfather of Chinese gambling films and now a highly divisive figure due to both his patchy film output and provocative political statements – and quickly sign on for another (Enter the Fat Dragon).

“Chasing the Dragon is the first formal collaboration with Wong as the director and me as the star,” says Yen, 54, during an interview with the Post in mid-September.

For the record, Yen did make a cameo appearance in Wong’s 1995 film, The Saint of Gamblers; in the following year, Yen co-starred with Chingmy Yau Suk-ching and Francis Ng Chun-yu in Satan Returns, a strange little horror film scripted and produced by Wong that time has mercifully forgotten. “It’s a cult film,” says Wong. “It doesn’t really count.”

Chasing the Dragon is a different story. A mega budget production which pits Yen against another superstar, Andy Lau Tak-wah, for the first time, the 1960s and ’70s-set gangster epic is a dual portrait of two true-life figures: drug dealer Crippled Ho (originally Ng Sik-ho), subject of the blockbuster To Be Number One, winner of best picture at the 1992 Hong Kong Film Awards; and corrupt police officer Lee Rock (originally Lui Lok), previously played by Lau in two 1991 films.