Wait, Donnie Yen and Huang Xiao Ming together, in one movie (and not some sprawling cinematic excuse to throw every Mainland and Hong Kong actor together for the purposes of buffeting Party popularity - I'm talking to you,
Founding of a Republic (
建國大業))? Yes, it is true, even though I'm late to the news. Ip Man 2 (葉問2:宗師傳奇) will star 2 of my now favorite people. This should be a decided step up for Mr. Huang whose last foray into the Hong Kong film industry was a little doozy called The Sniper (神鎗手), or more popularly 'Edison Chen's last (proper) movie'. Unfortunately, much of the press surrounding the release focused on Mr. Chen's sex scandal fallout, and the subsequent slicing and dicing of the film to minimize the budding photographer's screen time reduced it to a skeletal shoot em up number. Mr. Huang, however, seems to have a knack for prime roles, or he has a top agent. Aside from scoring substantial television parts that helped establish him as an upcoming star (particularly
Return of the Condor Heroes (
神鵰俠侶) and
Shanghai Bund (
新上海灘)), he also landed in Feng Xiaogang's sparse retelling of
Hamlet.
The Banquet (
夜宴) featured international and art house favorites Zhang Ziyi and Ge You and L'Oreal Men spokeperson Daniel Wu. Not too shabby. So expect
Ip Man 2 to rocket Huang further up the star ladder. Not only is it a much anticipated sequel to a popular and well-received movie, a young Bruce Lee will also feature in the story. Fans are already having wet dreams about this one.
