“I can tell you, I’m having a wonderful time here. Keanu Reeves is a wonderful soul, gentleman, best guy I’ve ever worked with, just a great guy, same as Chad. This so far has been the best experience in the very few American movies I have ever been. And you will not be disappointed with the film, you will be wowed by the film. And hopefully you like what I’m doing, hopefully people will like me,” Yen told Looper.

“I believe in destiny. A lot of times, what brings people together in one film, it’s all about timing and destiny. Same with this. I was working in other projects with one of the producers, Basil, and over the phone we were talking about our other projects. And he asked me, “Donnie, do you like the ‘John Wick’ series?” I said, “As a matter of fact, I do.” “Oh, would you like to be in it?” I said, “Well, it’s depending on the material and my character.” And they were really passionate about wanting me to be in the film, and we had multiple discussions of my role, and where I’d like to take this role. And we totally, we synced, and we were on the same page. That’s what happened, and there I am.”

For the longest time, the way we make action movies with martial arts, or any kind of combat action movies, a lot of these, they were created, choreographed — later on it was photographed by a lot of maybe specialists, but it was directed, edited, the way they placed the camera, by basically non-martial artists, up to now, because that’s how the system works. A martial arts choreographer or fight choreographer, not only in Western Hollywood but in any culture, is considered a technician, is considered a choreographer, like a band’s choreographer. They were never given the full assets to visualize through the way they see how it plays out.

And when you see for the longest time in American films, people complain about it even today, “Why this so choppy? Why is this, why is that?” Because probably I would guess, probably perhaps some decent or even brilliant choreography got into the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to shoot it. And he said, “Oh, let me try here. Let me try here.” And they start shooting multiple cameras, multiple shots, and then these shots were delivered to the editing room. And the editor is like, “Oh, let me figure this out,” and starts chopping it up. So at the end of the day, you see this choppy thing. But of course, right now the progress has changed so much. For example, the film I’m working on with Chad, he understands, he came from that culture. He was a stunt man, he worked with the Chinese, a lot of these Chinese action filmmakers. And he’s a good martial artist himself, he’s a well-trained martial artist for the longest time. He understands, oh, what was missing in these American action films when it comes down to the fights is you’re not shooting it right, you’re not editing it right.

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