“I’m allowed to love my own culture. Love my own country. Why cannot I be patriotic?”

The John Wick: Chapter 4 scene-stealer, who hails from southern China, feels good about how the following night might unfold, namely for his friend and Hong Kong neighbor Michelle Yeoh. Her victory and that of Everything Everywhere All at Once would be a landmark moment for Asian representation, he says.

“It very difficult then compared to now,” he says of his outsider status during the ’70s. “Now, when I visit [his daughter who attends college in the city], you can find Chinese restaurants everywhere. It’s a totally different city now.”

Yen finds it hard to watch his cultural heritage bastardized in American films. He bristles at Quentin Tarantino’s depiction of martial arts legend Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

“Everybody is entitled to their opinions,” Yen explains. “Quentin Tarantino is a very renowned filmmaker, and he’s entitled to his status. And I’m entitled to state my own view. Obviously, he was making fun of Bruce. It was cartoonish.”

Yen says he is content straddling both Hollywood and the Chinese film industry and is “up for anything,” “except controversy.”

But on this day, a Change.org petition is circulating that calls for the Academy to remove Yen as a presenter because he previously accused Hong Kong protesters “of being rioters.” He stands firm and characterizes the 2019 uprising as “a riot” and not a protest and says he witnessed the violence firsthand.

“I’m allowed to love my own culture. Love my own country. Why cannot I be patriotic?” he asks. “This whole online cyber-bullying/cancel culture has got to stop. You can’t own somebody’s thoughts. And you want to silence them? It’s totally hypocrites.”

“Most of the people outside of China don't see it until they are there,” Yen says. “The modernisation. I have been in so many countries in the world, but it’s not even close. The progress – the freeways, the architecture, the convenience of lifestyle.” He is upset when the Western media focuses only on negative stories about China. “The BBC, CNN, they never talk about that. They never mention the true side of it. But I’m there, you know?”