Back at June's PlayStation State of Play stream, my most-anticipated action game of the year popped up with a short teaser trailer starring a mysterious masked man fighting with a sword in one hand and a baby in the other. In a much, much longer trailer today coinciding with pre-orders going live, Phantom Blade Zero revealed who was behind the mask: Donnie "Ip Man" Yen.
Call this Phantom Blade Zero's Keanu moment—except Yen is doing more than lending his face and voice to the supporting role of Mó Yuan, protagonist Soul's father. That'd be stolen valor in a kung fu game, considering Donnie Yen is an action star not just in his native Hong Kong, but internationally, thanks to roles in Rogue One and John Wick 4. He has some all-timer Chinese action classics to his name, including Hero, Iron Monkey, and Once Upon a Time in China 2, and since 2008 he's starred in multiple films as the man who taught Bruce Lee kung fu, grandmaster Ip Man.
