Well, who's surprised? People sometimes forget Donnie Yen has been in the business for a very long time (i was just watching a clip from In the Line of Duty 4 from 1989) and those in the MA genre can't do what they do until they can no longer move! You have to give a lot of these guys credit for what they've done for the genre already. A lot of them have been working in what is a highly dangerous, risk-taking business for decades and many have action scenes that are from 20-30 years ago. They've also been extremely prolific, doing movies at a rate of several per year.
What I think Donnie Yen has to do now is a lot more behind-the-scenes work, basically like Sammo Hung, and slowly but surely retire from the big-screen, giving more oppotunities to people he worked with in his more recent movies, but work with them nonetheless! In fact, i think he has started to do this already. It no coincidence that all his recent movies feature actual and good martial artists (many of whom didn't really make it in the 90s) like Colin Chow, Louis Fan, Wu Jing to name but a few.
In short, he could still contribute a heck of a lot to the genre, but he needs to know what he's doing and doesn't just disappear for extended periods like many in business often do. He does seem like a smart guy, who understands the business, its trends and his place in it.
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