It's been a while now, but when I heard that Donnie Yen was going to be making a special appearance at IFC for a fashion event, I couldn't help it -- I was excited.
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There was no real reason to be, really. The guy is awesome no doubt, but was there any reason for me to have to see him in person? It's not like I wanted to challenge him to a fight, seduce him (yuck!) or even have a conversation with him. I just wanted to ... see him!
My fascination with Donnie Ip Man (like most people) started after seeing the movie (the first one, NOT the crappy sequel), and the funny thing is, we weren't even planning to see it at first. If I recall correctly, tickets to Jim Carrey's Yes Man were sold out, so we just figured it'd be the next best thing (Yes Man, Ip man, what's the diff?). So there we were, nearly three years ago, expecting nothing and getting a whole lot more than we had bargained for.
We emerged from the theatre pumped, excited and hating the Japanese, feeling victorious and Chinese even though we were hardly Chinese ourselves, rooting for Ip Man, Bruce Lee and all the martial artists to come out of China. We ran home to look up our new hero Ip Man in wikipedia, and were shocked to find out that most of the movie (besides the existence of Ip Man himself) was actually fiction...bummer.
In any case, you can't deny Donnie's got skills and I've been a fan ever since. So back to IFC... squishing in between all the socialites and important VIPs, there I was, dawdling around hoping to get a look at Mr. Yen himself, when suddenly, there he was shuffling towards me to get to his very tall wife of his (I say very tall because a) she was in heels, b) she is really tall and c) Donnie is no giant).
Of course, I grabbed my chance to snap a pic with Donnie and I'm not proud to say I was a bumbling starstruck fool while doing so. But whatevs, I got my pic! Teehee ... and yes he does look quite plastic-fantastic in person ;)