YIP MAN 2 OUT ON APRIL 29

Yup, it's finally out!YIP MAN 2, the long-awaited sequel ofYip Man, premiered in Beijing on April 21. The official release date for Asia will be... tadaaah!... TO-MOR-ROW!!!At this stage, I'm probably allowed to post another blog on the movie, i.e. the making of it, here on AnD. Some of you may have noticed that I deleted my previous blog entry on the topic. I decided to do so at the time, because I got some pretty negative feedback from fellow-actors and -- indirectly -- members of the production team. Apparently, they were not too happy with me "spilling the beans". Prima donnas!  There had been quite a few misunderstandings and wrong interpretations of what I had written about some incidents behind the scenes. Also, I wasn't supposed to post any photos of actors in costume on the set (including my humble self) and stuff like that. Well, you know the deal... we're all big boys, and we know that everybody -- particularly here on AnD -- does it (besides, any publicity is good publicity, as they say). I didn't think it such a big deal, especially since I was pretty cautious about picking the most innocuous pictures.Admittedly, I wasn't as cautious about picking the most innocuous words, when describing some of the bloopers behind the scenes. I'm particularly sorry about the remark I made about stunt actor Darren Shahlavi and Sammo Hung. I wrote that Darren accidently hit Sammo in the mouth while shooting a fight scene, sending him to the floor as a result... sure, this did happen, but by casually mentioning it, I seem to have caused a lot of brouhaha in certain circles. To make that absolutely clear, I didn't mean to give the impression that Darren hit Sammo out of clumsiness or anything like that. Darren is a pro to the core, and I merely wanted to point out that such things happen all the time on martial arts movie sets, no matter how masterly your fighting skills are. Unfortunate timing on both sides, slightly inaccurate distance, fatigue, an injury (Sammo was suffering from a bad knee, in fact, and literally slipped into the punch) ... ANYTHING can cause such a glitch.   Sammo directing Darren (with me behind the ropes)Shooting a martial arts flick is no picnic, especially when you're tired and/or injured. I myself once kicked "Xanda" star Sang Weilin in the face while filming "The King of Wrestlers" 搏击之霸(and I got elbowed in the head pretty hard a couple of times in return). No big deal. That's all part of the game... and if some people latch on to a trifle like that, it just goes to show that they haven't got the faintest idea of what working as a stunt fighter/martial arts actor is actually all about.... with my buddy Antony Wood, who played the ref in the Donnie/Darren fight... I understand that poor Darren had to answer a lot of stupid questions because of what I'd written, and I'm truly sorry about that. Honestly, I didn't think that the little blog of some unknown German stunt actor dude would ever draw this much attention. Wow! Pretty cool on one hand, pretty scary on the other...Darren and I during the press conference sceneAnyway, 's all water under the bridge, since the movie will be in theaters tomorrow... and I'm pretty sure everybody is going to be really happy with the result. Pics and vids of Yip Man 2 are all over the net now, meaning I should be allowed to contribute some stuff myself, too.http://www.youtube.com/v/48m-j3LF_X0&hl=de_DE&fs=1&Check out this clip! There's a lot of Darren in there... and you might even be able to spot me once or twice in the background.Enjoy