Do we like Donnie Yen?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Generous giver and a stickler for dignified Asian roles, held back by his contested politics and a temper on set.
Donnie Yen is the bloke who made Hollywood take Hong Kong action seriously. He built his name in martial arts cinema and became a global face through the Ip Man films, John Wick and Star Wars. In his own telling he never went the formal university route, saying his classroom was built “scene by scene”.
The big stoush is political. In a 2023 GQ profile he said of the 2019 Hong Kong demonstrations, “It wasn’t a protest, okay, it was a riot.” A petition of more than 100,000 signatures tried to get him dumped as an Oscars presenter, and a co-author said a public figure like him could mislead people. Yen called it cancel culture and asked “Why cannot I be patriotic?” He presented anyway.
On the harm check, we found nothing from him on trans or LGBTQ+ people, women, vaccines or climate, so we can't say more than that. His own contested act is political: he sits on a Chinese state advisory body and in 2020 posted about Hong Kong’s return to the “motherland”, which drew a #BoycottMulan push from critics. Where you land depends on whether you read that as patriotism or as cosying up to Beijing while the national security law bit.
On the nice test it's mixed-to-fine. In 2023 he was accused of having security guards order fans out of the way at a commercial event in China, and he apologised after the online backlash. In 2025 a video from a film set appeared to show him swearing at crew; he said it wasn't aimed at anyone and that “Using profanity doesn’t mean you’re uncultured.”
He has also stood up for how Asian characters get written. He has said he pushed back on the early version of Caine in John Wick 4, asking “Why does he always have to be called Shang or Chang?” He turned down roles over how Asian characters were handled, and he won a Beijing court case over a director’s claims against him back in 2015.
The giving is real. He donated HK$1 million after the Tai Po fire in November 2025, and in 2020 gave the same amount towards medical workers in Wuhan. In January 2026 Lingnan University gave him an honorary doctorate for his work in martial arts, cinema and Chinese culture.