Donnie Yen to Star in Sleeping Dogs Movie Adaptation of Best-Selling Video Game

Hot on the heels of starring in the amazing Rogue One, Donnie Yen will be leading up Sleeping Dogs, a film adaptation of a best-selling Square Enix video game.

The story, as described by Deadline, goes a little something like this:

[It] follows an undercover police officer (Yen) on a mission to take down one of the most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations in the world: the notorious Triads. The movie based on an action video game is set in Hong Kong and focuses on martial arts fighting, racing, boat chases … and shooting while doing all of that.

So, basically it sounds a lot like Hard Boiled or any of the brilliant Hong Kong action flicks of yore. As any fan of those movies can tell you, it’s super gritty and visceral—which, I guess, describes the original game pretty well. Yen’s certainly up for the physical challenge that’s sure to come with this type of role, as he boasts a long, storied career in martial arts movies, starting with the Ip Man series, where he played a Wing Chun martial arts master.

While you would be forgiven for staying cautiously guarded around something being touted as a film adaptation of a video game, I’d suggest you should perhaps keep your mind open for this one. Yen is a force to be reckoned with, and he shines in so many different ways. It’s just great to see that more Hollywood mainstream creatives are seeing him that way too, now.

(image via Lucasfilm/Disney)

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