Donnie Yen is a Chinese martial artist, action star, director and fight choreographer who has appeared in over fifty films and is one of the fastest fighters you’ll ever see on screen. After appearing as a stunt performer early in his career, Yen first started to gain international attention when Quentin Tarantino helped the film Iron Monkey get a North American release, and following that Yen’s career really took off. He had a small role in the Jet Li martial arts epic Hero, and also began to do Hollywood work in films such as Highlander: Endgame, Blade 2 and Shanghai Knights. Now he’s reached full-on leading man status, and his most recent films include Ip Man, Ip Man 2 and Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (which is a follow-up to Yen’s 1995 TV series Fist of Fury). Personally, my favourite Donnie Yen movie is a little-known surreal chop-socky flick called Butterfly and Sword, which is a pretty amazing movie if you can get your hands on it. Yen turns 48 today.