10 best Asian action movie stars working today, from John Wick 4’s Donnie Yen to Ong-Bak’s Tony Jaa and Attack on Titan’s Rina Takeda
- Ip Man and Rogue One star Donnie Yen spent most of the ’90s fronting lacklustre martial arts vehicles before he found success with 2005’s SPL, aka Kill Zone
- Charismatic Korean heartthrob Lee Byung-hun flits effortlessly between romantic and action roles, and has appeared in Hollywood films such as G.I. Joe and Red 2
As news breaks that action veterans Donnie Yen Ji-dan and Hiroyuki Sanada have both been cast in John Wick 4 – arguably the high water mark of ongoing action franchises – we have come up with a list of our top 10 favourite Asian action stars working today.
Donnie Yen
Undeniably Asia’s most successful action star right now, the Ip Man and Rogue One star has scored a string of recent home-grown hits and Hollywood blockbuster appearances.
Donnie Yen feared Ip Man 3 co-star Mike Tyson would kill him
Wu Jing
The 47-year-old Beijing native cut his teeth in Hong Kong, but it wasn’t until he returned to mainland China that Wu struck gold. His white-clad assassin from SPL almost eclipsed his adversary – and the film’s star – Donnie Yen in their iconic alleyway fight, and it paved the way for Wu’s own directorial debut, Legendary Assassin, a criminally under-seen kung fu Key Largo riff.
Max Zhang
Max Zhang Jin got his break as Zhang Ziyi’s stunt double in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but has since risen through the ranks to become one of the most exciting Chinese martial artists working today.
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Ironically, his first major acting role was also opposite Zhang Ziyi, in Wong Kar-wai’s 2013 hit The Grandmaster. He followed that as the villainous prison warden in Soi Cheang’s SPL2: A Time for Consequences, before facing Donnie Yen as “Master Z” in the climactic showdown of Ip Man 3, which spawned its own spin-off series under the direction of Yuen Woo-ping.
Tony Jaa
No one has made a bigger impact on martial arts cinema this century than Jaa, who emerged on the world stage fully formed as the next great action hero, in 2003’s Ong-Bak. Prachya Pinkaew’s bone-crunching Muay Thai spectacle caused an international sensation, with Jaa performing all his own stunts unassisted.
Despite struggling to direct a follow-up prequel, Jaa’s star has continued to rise, with the performer landing roles opposite many other names from this list in everything from SPL2 and Furious 7 to xXx: The Return of Xander Cage and mainland Chinese holiday hit Detective Chinatown 3.
Iko Uwais
Indonesian action flick The Raid, from Welsh director Gareth Evans, unleashed a raft of explosive new talent onto an unsuspecting global public. Chief among them was Iko Uwais, whose fresh-faced appearance concealed a deadly prowess in the traditional fighting style of silat.
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Having already fronted Evans’ previous film, Merantau, Uwais went on to headline The Raid’s even more ambitious sequel, which subsequently earned the 38-year-old fighting roles opposite the likes of Keanu Reeves and Mark Wahlberg, and an appearance in J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens alongside fellow Raid alumni Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman.
Joe Taslim
The other major breakout from Indonesian hit The Raid is this former international judo champion, who has parlayed his memorable supporting turn in Evans’ action classic into a shining international career.
In 2018 he reunited with countryman Iko Uwais for Timo Tjahjanto’s bone-crunching Netflix thriller The Night Comes for Us, and this summer assumed the iconic mantle of Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat.
Lee Byung-hun
One of Asian cinema’s most beloved leading men, the charismatic Korean heartthrob flits effortlessly between heartbreaking romantic leads and bone-breaking action roles.
In a deliberate effort to diversify his image, Lee played an ice cold gangster looking for payback in Kim Jee-woon’s achingly cool A Bittersweet Life. Kim next cast him as the flamboyant villain in his quasi-western The Good, the Bad, the Weird.
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Hollywood opportunities inevitably followed, in G.I. Joe, Red 2 and Terminator Genisys, as well as further collaborations with Kim, in the nightmarish I Saw the Devil and wartime thriller The Age of Shadows.
Ma Dong-seok
A success story as huge as his hefty frame, man-mountain Ma Dong-seok exploded onto the scene as the gentle giant trapped aboard a speeding locomotive with a horde of ravenous zombies in the runaway smash Train to Busan.
Rina Takeda
Of all the emerging female talent in Asia’s action sphere, few can claim the raw talent and youthful exuberance of this Japanese starlet. The diminutive performer first turned heads when, aged just 17, she landed the lead in Fuyuhiko Nishi’s low budget High Kick Girl!.
A black belt in ryukyu shorin-ryu karate, Takeda went on to headline a number of schlocky martial arts cheapies including Karate Girl and Danger Dolls, Noboru Iguchi’s horror comedy Dead Sushi, and a supporting role in blockbuster series Attack on Titan.
Having just turned 30 earlier in June, Takeda’s future looks very bright indeed.
Hiroyuki Sanada
The oldest entrant on this list, the 60-year-old Sanada is showing no signs of slowing down – in fact his career has been blossoming thanks to roles in recent hits Avengers: Endgame, Army of the Dead and Mortal Kombat.
Hiroyuki Sanada on teaching Japanese culture to Hollywood
A protégé of Japanese action legend Sonny Chiba, Sanada studied karate and shorinji kempo – similar to Shaolin kung fu – and was already an established star when he appeared in the Michelle Yeoh vehicle Royal Warriors.
Sanada’s first Hollywood role was as a hot-headed warrior in the Tom Cruise epic The Last Samurai, and he has since cemented his position as one of Hollywood’s most versatile Asian character actors.
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