"In some senses, the 'Ip Man' featured in the series is the real me," says the action star, referring to some personality traits, such as taking family as a higher priority than his career.
The real Ip Man (1893-1972), also known as Yip Man, was a Guangdong-born martial arts master who spent his later years teaching Wing Chun skills in Hong Kong.
Wing Chun is a concept-based martial arts system and an effective form of self-defense devised in southern China during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
Thanks to Ip's world-renowned student Bruce Lee, Wing Chun made a global impact, and has ardent fans in a number of countries including the United States, Finland, Germany, Turkey and Austria.
Yen, who began to learn martial arts at 4, says kung fu movies over the years have turned learning martial arts into a "lifestyle" and a kind of "fashion" for many foreigners.
"Many Hollywood stars such as Robert De Niro are big fans of Chinese kung fu. And I believe the unique charm of Wing Chun will attract even more Westerners."
But despite kung fu movies having a wide fan base in the West, Yen feels English speakers find it difficult to understand the values in the martial arts movies.
From his point of view, martial arts movies－a part of Chinese culture－require the audience to have a deep knowledge of China's history, art and philosophy.
For most action fans though, the most anticipated scene in the film is the fight between Yen and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who plays a corrupt property developer manipulating an illegal boxing market..
Tyson, who reveals that the movie marks his films debut, said at a recent media event in China that acting is kind of rebirth for him.
Yen says he had a lot of discussions about modern combat with Tyson during their shooting stints that overlapped.
"They (the producers) had a commercial motive in using Tyson in the film. But what concerned me was how to make our three-minute fight convincing," he says.
"Tyson is too fast for the audience to clearly see what happens. So sometimes we purposely slowed down things."
It seems Yen has more such cross-cultural encounters ahead.
Yen has recently taken the place of Jet Li to co-star with American actor Vin Diesel in the action sequel, xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.
