Donnie Yen

Yen's early career was built entirely in Hong Kong, and his breakthrough didn't come quietly. His role as the villain General Nap-lan in Once Upon a Time in China II (1992) — squaring off against Jet Li — announced him as a genuine screen presence, someone who could hold his own opposite one of the genre's biggest stars (TMDB). Iron Monkey (1993) and Wing Chun (1994) followed, cementing his place in the Hong Kong kung fu film canon. On television, he took on the fictional folk hero Chen Zhen in the series Fist of Fury (1995), a role he'd revisit 15 years later in Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (2010). The Ip Man series, which kicked off in 2008, is where Yen's career hit a different stratosphere entirely. Across four films — Ip Man (2008), Ip Man 2 (2010), Ip Man 3 (2015), and Ip Man 4: The Finale (2019) — he built one of the most beloved characters in modern martial arts cinema, and the franchise became the top-grossing of its kind in Hong Kong and Chinese box office history. He also co-produced the spin-off Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (2018). Between those installments, Yen kept a punishing pace in Hong Kong productions: Hero (2002), SPL: Sha Po Lang (2005), Flash Point (2007) — which featured some genuinely brutal MMA-influenced fight choreography — Wu Xia (2011), Kung Fu Jungle (2014), Chasing the Dragon (2017), and Raging Fire (2021), among others (TMDB). His American debut came with Highlander: Endgame (2000), followed by a cameo in Blade II (2002), but it was Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), in which he plays the Force-sensitive warrior Chirrut Îmwe — you'll remember the "I am one with the Force" scene — that made him a household name in Western markets. John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) extended that momentum considerably. Hard to say if any other martial arts star of his generation has managed such a clean pivot into mainstream Hollywood this late in a career.