“There’s a lot of confusion among the fans over what I said in Beijing a week ago about Ip Man 4 being my final kungfu movie,” said Yen at a press con at the Mandarin Orchard Singapore on Tuesday (Dec 10). “They’re asking, ‘So he isn’t making action movies anymore?”

“Kungfu is an action movie but an action flick isn’t always a kungfu movie,” Yen, 56, elaborated in Mandarin. “The birth of cinema was also the beginning of action cinema, because during the Charlie Chaplin silent film era, you can only use body language in storytelling.”

“Later on, you have your American Westerns, war movies, Marvel movies — they’re all action movies,” Yen added. “But kungfu movies are more culture-specific, it’s a kind of action movies made by the Chinese, predominantly period pieces with its own distinctive style.”

Yen has said before that he had “filmed a number of kungfu films that are about the same”. So after 30 years of making kungfu films, he felt it’s time to move on and he couldn’t ask for a better way to close that chapter of his career than be in the final Ip Man movie, which he hopes would be a memorable send-off for his fans. 

Judging from Yen’s recent works (Big Brother, Chasing the Dragon), he’s eyeing on projects that challenge him as an actor but still have an action component. In his next movie, he’ll show off his funny side in the Wong Jing-directed Enter the Fat Dragon, an action-comedy where he dons a bodysuit to play an overweight cop.

When asked if Yen is under a lot of pressure to repeat, if not, top the success of Ip Man 3, which earned $7.65 million here, he quipped, “I’ll leave [the worrying] to the movie distributors. I’ve already made the best movie I could possibly make. Best of luck with the promotions!”

In fact, the exhibitors are going all out with Ip Man 4: they have collated a print count of 76, one of the highest print count numbers for Asian movies. (In comparison, Ip Man 3 only had 55.) The Wilson Yip-helmed sequel is up against Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which opens a day earlier on Dec 19.

Yen’s two-day press tour in Singapore started on Monday at Our Tampines Hub, where more than 5,000 people turned up to witness him unveil  the Ip Man Pavilion. He also attended the movie’s gala premiere at Lido on Tuesday.

Ip Man 4: The Finale opens on Dec 20, with sneaks on Dec 19. Tix go on sale this Thursday, from 10am.  The Ip Man Pavilion is on display until Jan 6.  

Photos: Shaw Organisation