The reason Donnie Yen didn't want to be in The Expandables 2

[Drunken Monk]

He choreographed most of Blade II, only to have Del Toro (mispelling?) tell him "this ain't HK", and fire him for giving the action too much HK like action. That opening fight sequence with Blade was originally like 20mins.

Wow, I had no idea. Interesting story. Del Toro has always seemed very embracing to me.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

Hey, he gave it a shot with Highlander, Shanghai Knights, and Blade II, and was dogged on all three sets..

He choreographed most of Blade II, only to have Del Toro (mispelling?) tell him "this ain't HK", and fire him for giving the action too much HK like action. That opening fight sequence with Blade was originally like 20mins.

Good for Yen. Those Hollywood qweilos always diss my Hong Kong brothers.

F-k em.

Source please. An interview with Dr. Craig Reid sounds much more nice that that:

In answer to the question about better action? "Well," Yen pauses, "You know, I try to explain to Americans, that fight choreography is not about choreography but how it is shot and so in a big film like this there are just too many departments. I was hired to do choreography, the fights, advise the director. But it's such a huge production (rumored over $70 million) and I don't think that it's totally the way I wanted it to be. So Guillermo can bring in his specialty, which is thriller and suspense to the film and also he added a touch to the action oriented effects of BLADE."

[The Dragon]

Source please. An interview with Dr. Craig Reid sounds much more nice that that:

I have that source from Dr. Craig. Meh.

Wesley gave an interview about Donnie doing the AC for Blade II. I do not have that. It is lightly touched upon in the original commentary.

I will say, the "this ain't HK" are NOT Del Toro's exact words, but mine. The intent behind what's said is true. He wanted to reign in Donnie's choreography for a number of reasons, but didn't want to turn the film into straight HK-stylized action.. Some of the actors had trouble keeping up. It's old news though. Wesley talked about that when the film first came out.

[Cognoscente]

I wish that there was a Chinese version of The Expendables. Back in the day, they should have done a girls-with-guns version of The Magnificent Seven with Moon Lee, Yukari Oshima, Cynthia Khan, Kara Hui, Sharon Yeung, Sibelle Hu and Joyce Godenzi.