Donnie Yen plays a soldier-turned teacher in the trailer for the martial arts action flick, Big Brother. Yen, of course, is an extremely popular star in China thanks to the many martial arts films he's headlined over the years, including movies like the lucrative Ip Man trilogy. More recently, he's enjoyed a surge in global fame thanks to his roles in tentpoles like the Netflix sequel Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, Lucasfilm's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the Vin Diesel-led xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.
Written by Tai-lee Chan (the Ip Man trilogy) and directed by Ka-Wai Kam (the second assistant director on Ip Man 1 & 2), Big Brother hit theaters in several countries last August, including the U.S. and China. The film will be making its way to the home video market over the next four to five weeks, beginning with its premiere on Digital HD later this month. As such, Screen Rant is exclusively debuting a trailer for the movie's home release.
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The Big Brother trailer is now online, ahead of the movie's home video rollout. You can check it out in the space below.
In case the trailer didn't make it clear, Big Brother offers Yen a chance to flex his comedy muscles while simultaneously flexing his literal muscles and kicking a whole lot of butt. The promo alone is full of intentionally ridiculous moments, like Yen's character casually foiling his students' attempt to pull a prank on him, knocking out bad guys in his school's cafeteria, or teaching a delinquent not to smoke on campus by chucking a basketball at his head. It's all pretty silly, but that's clearly what the film is going for, and it makes for a nice change of pace from Yen's comparatively serious offerings. Of course, this is still a Donnie Yen action movie, so there'll be plenty of high-kinetic fights and martial arts tussles along the way, as the trailer illustrates.
All in all, Big Brother should help to tide Yen's fanbase over while they wait for the bigger projects he's got in the pipeline right now. Most notably, the actor has Ip Man 4 set to hit Chinese theaters this summer (followed by a domestic release sometime after), and will play Commander Tung in next year's live-action Disney telling, Mulan. There's also a slim, but nevertheless real chance that Yen will reprise his Rogue One role as Chirrut Îmwe in an upcoming Star Wars project, like the Cassian Andor prequel series that's being developed for the Disney Plus Streaming Service. No harm in dreaming, right?
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Big Brother premieres on Digital HD on Tuesday, April 16. It releases on DVD and Blu-ray a month later on May 21.