From gracing the cover of fashion magazines to starring alongside Keanu Reeves in the latest John Wick movie, action superstar Donnie Yen has never been more sought after in Hollywood and other cultural capitals.
But at home in Hong Kong, the Ip Man star’s rise in global stature has spurred a backlash from pro-democracy activists. They’ve highlighted his cozy ties with the Chinese Communist Party, with an online petition urging the Oscars to drop Yen as a presenter at the 95th Academy Awards this Sunday garnering nearly 60,000 signatures as of Tuesday.
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“He’s made it clear he wants to use films as a medium to tell positive stories of China and Hong Kong. He’s helping to whitewash the Chinese regime,” Henry Tong, a Taiwan-based democracy advocate from Hong Kong who started the petition, told VICE World News. Tong joined large-scale protests in 2019 demanding greater freedoms in Hong Kong and is among tens of thousands of residents who have since left the city amid a crackdown on civil liberties, including curbs on free speech.
While Yen is able to freely pursue his career in China and abroad, Hong Kong filmmakers say they feel shackled by a recent censorship law that bans the screening of films that could “endanger national security.” Some independent filmmakers have given up hope of showing their award-winning work in the city’s theaters, citing the new regulation, while some film festivals have had to cancel screenings after failing to obtain approval from authorities.
Yen, who turns 60 this year, has always been unapologetic about his support for the Chinese government. And the increasingly vocal actor was recently rewarded for his loyalty.
In January, he was appointed to Beijing’s top advisory body, the National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, as a representative of Hong Kong’s art and culture sector—a role akin to a stamp of approval from China’s political elite.
Speaking outside the Great Hall of the People in the Chinese capital Beijing, where he attended an annual meeting of the advisory group for the first time on Sunday, Yen pledged to do his job well. “There needs to be better policies to attract investment and boost demand so more filmmakers can develop their talents and become the pride of China,” he said.
Tong also took issue with Yen’s remarks in a recent interview with GQ Hype, in which he described the unrest in 2019 as a “riot,” praised China’s rapid development, and lamented the foreign media’s focus on the negative side of the country.
“The BBC, CNN, they never talk about that. They never mention the true side of it,” he said.
His comments come as China has tightened its grip on Hong Kong’s entertainment industry and increasingly demanded celebrities make their allegiance known. During the 2019 protests, for instance, Hong Kong actors and singers vowed to protect China’s flag on social media, while those who failed to assert their love for the country were singled out and shamed in a campaign endorsed by state media.
But Yen’s apparent loyalty to Beijing does not guarantee that John Wick: Chapter 4, in which he plays a blind assassin and an old friend of the titular hitman, would be approved for release in China—the world’s largest film market after the U.S.
Last March, Chinese streaming platforms pulled all films starring Keanu Reeves, including the John Wick franchise, after the actor joined a Tibet-related concert held by a non-profit under the Dalai Lama, whom China sees as a threat.
Wang Dan, an exiled Chinese dissident and founder of the think tank Dialogue China, weighed in on Tuesday, describing Yen’s remarks in the GQ Hype interview as “a bloody insult to the people of Hong Kong.” Having Yen as a guest presenter “would be extremely inappropriate, a trampling of the ideals of freedom and democracy, and a kowtow to China’s authoritarian regime,” he wrote on Twitter.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Donnie Yen’s manager in Hong Kong did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
