Mandarin Film Plans Yip Man Film

-- Yip Man vs Yip Man --

Wong Kar Wai announced a project on Bruce Lee's master Yip Man, a legendary practitioner of Wing Chun, 5 years back, with Tony Leung being cast as Yip Man. The project, tentatively called Grandmaster, traces Yip Man from leaving his hometown of Foshan in China's Guangdong province to teach Wing Chun in Hong Kong, to taking Bruce Lee as a disciple when he was in his 60s. Tony Leung has already started learning Wing Chun for the role. However, so far, there has been no sign of the film beginning production.

Now, another studio, Mandarin Films, is also planning to make a biopic based on the same person, with Donnie Yen being invited to play Yip Man. Raymond Wong confirms that Mandarin Films has just decided to shoot this movie and is in initial stage of production, gathering information on the life of Yip Man, and in coming up with a script. Raymond Wong says that there won't be any conflict of interests between Wong Kar Wai's Grandmaster and his version for they would be taking a different approach. The main focus of Mandarin Films version would be martial arts.

Donnie Yen whose schedule is tightly packed, has not confirmed his role. He's still considering about it as, among other reasons, Flash Point has taxed him physically. 10 years back, Jeff Lau teamed up with Corey Yuen to bring the story of Yip Man on the screen, with Donnie Yen as Yip Man and Stephen Chow as Bruce Lee. Donnie Yen had signed the contract and received part of the acting fee. However, the studio folded resulting in the project being abandoned.  Information Times, Straits Times