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.
Developer S-Game announced with today’s trailer that Yen has been involved as a “creative consultant” for PBZ’s kung fu choreography since 2023. That means the studio’s managed to keep his role under wraps since the game was first announced. I imagine the commenters over on Bilibili are going apeshit right now.
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“Huge thanks to Donnie and his stunt team for bringing authentic kung fu to the game,” the trailer’s description reads.”
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If you were conspiracy-minded and paid really close attention to detail, you may have been able to see this reveal coming. Back in 2023, S-Game founder Soulframe Liang wrote a post on the PlayStation Blog naming Kenji Tanigaki as the game’s “action director.” Tanigaki has been a member of Yen’s stunt team for some 30 years, collaborating with him on at least a dozen projects. Looks like we can now add one more to the list.
Phantom Blade Zero was scheduled to release just a month from now, but was recently delayed until October 29 for extra polish. Donnie Yen’s star power, at least for the Chinese audience, is probably yet another reason Soulframe isn’t worried about competition from GTA 6. A PlayStation State of Play stream diving deeper into the game is planned for next week, on August 17.
Pre-orders are live now on Steam, with a few goodies in tow.
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