Donnie Yen feared Ip Man 3 co-star Mike Tyson might kill him filming a fight scene martial arts star saw as a ‘life-and-death boxing match’
- Yen remembers a fight scene where he ducked just in time to avoid a punch from Tyson that ‘touched my hair’, before smashing into a sandbag behind him
- ‘Just a little carelessness and it could be fatal,’ says Yen, who also recalls gruelling action scenes with Jet Li in Once Upon a Time in China II and Hero
Hong Kong martial arts actor Donnie Yen Ji-dan still remembers the whoosh of air when a punch from former professional boxer Mike Tyson whistled past his head and landed on a sandbag. Tyson played Yen’s opponent in Ip Man 3 (2015) and Yen says he was afraid of accidentally getting killed on set by the former boxing heavyweight champion.
“I am a fan who watched his boxing matches until 4 or 5am on TV in Hong Kong when I was a child,” says Yen, adding he was thrilled to see him in person when making the movie. “I was worried that he might not hold back in using force as he is not an actor. I had to be very cautious. I saw it as a life-and-death boxing match. Just a little carelessness and it could be fatal.”
“In that scene, I had to duck my head when it came so near to my head that it touched my hair. I had to duck my head at the last moment so his fist missed me and landed on the sandbag next to me which flew out on impact. He had to use a lot of force to throw the punch. When his punch came, I felt like a big truck was rushing towards me. I can still remember the sense of danger now.”
Having survived his encounter with “the baddest man on the planet”, Yen says that his new film, Raging Fire, is “the most satisfactory action film with actual combat in my career”.