Donnie Yen Reveals Why He Turned Down The Expendables 2

Very few Hong Kong stars make it in Hollywood. The cold, hard truth is that there are very few decent roles for Asians in Tinseltown. Donnie Yen did try his hand, with limited success. You might’ve seen him in “Blade 2″ and “Shanghai Knights”. Since then, he’s resumed his career back home with much better results.

This week, Yen made a rare visit to New York City, where he received the Asia Star Award at the New York Asian Film Festival. The American press took the opportunity to ask him whether he had plans to resume his Hollywood stint. The answer was a tentative no. Which led to questions of why he turned down a role in Sylvester Stallone’s “The Expendables 2″. Yen had been approached last year and he declined to be involved.

He explained: “They wanted me to be in ‘Expendables 2′ but I just didn’t feel the role clicked. I was flattered that I was approached by the producers but I just didn’t see the role they asked me to do being that intriguing. I didn’t really want to do it but I’m open for anything. Doing a movie is a stressful thing. You spend months of your life focusing into that one project and I want to make sure I do something I really like or I’m really passionate about.”

Good call, I say. He probably would’ve gotten a raw deal, and reduced to a bit player like Jet Li has. He doesn’t deserve a downgrade like that. Yesterday, Yen played host to a screening of his 2011 film “Wu Xia” at the Festival, which is only now getting a US release.