Of the top three martial arts actors of today, Donnie Yen is high on the list. For a long time, he has regularly commuted between Asia and North America. In China, where he started his acting career as a teenager in the 1980s, he is one of the most important figures in action movies.

The kungfu film master Yuen Woo-ping, who was the action choreographer for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, discovered Yen fresh from a top Beijing Wushu Academy during the early 1990s. Since then, he has played in Hong Kong TV series Fist of Fury and films including Once Upon a Time in China II, Wing Chun, Hero and Shanghai Knights.

This winter he is back in action in the movie, Ip Man, helmed by director Wilson Yip. Adapted from the story of Ip Man, the movie retells the life of the grand master of wing chun martial arts, known internationally as Bruce Lee's teacher.

Playing the lead role of Ip Man, Yen spent nine months learning wing chun.

Full of forceful kungfu moves and fiercely patriotic, the film follows Ip's dramatic transformation from kungfu enthusiast to a patriot teacher, who endeavors to save the country by teaching more people martial arts.

Another young generation kungfu star, Wu Jing, releases his directorial debut, Legendary Assassin, this weekend. We also have Chinese director Feng Xiaogang's long-anticipated movie, If You Are the One. This romantic comedy cost US$8 million and was shot in Beijing, Hangzhou and Japan.