Simu Liu wants Jackie Chan’s Action Style for “Sleeping Dogs”, Fans react
After Donnie Yen failed to turn the popular video game “Sleeping Dogs” into an action film over the past eight years, Simu Liu is now taking over and apparently wants to emulate Jackie Chan’s action style once again. Fans are already responding online with further film ideas.
The action/open-world game “Sleeping Dogs” was released in 2012 for various platforms. It is set in the metropolis of Hong Kong and tells the story of Chinese-American police officer Wei Shen, who returns from the United States to his hometown to carry out a mission. In 2017, Donnie Yen was confirmed as the lead actor for the film adaptation. A year later, the project even went into production. But then, in January 2025, the news broke: the dog had fallen asleep again.
Shortly afterwards, Simu Liu tweeted that he was working on bringing the project to fruition. And indeed, in October 2025, the social media-savvy Liu confirmed that the script was complete. It was written by Tze Chun.
But why should this concern Jackie Chan fans? After all, the 71-year-old is too old for the role of Wei Shen – no offence intended. Well, Simu Liu is so active online that he likes to scatter his posts across various platforms: Instagram, X, Threads. An interesting post of his appeared on the latter recently, directly alluding to Jackie Chan.
A fan posted a screenshot, probably created by themselves, claiming that Liu is too old to perform the classic Jackie Chan-style action moves, i.e. doing his own stunts. This screenshot is accompanied by a reply from what is probably also a fake Simu Liu account, which responds with “hold my beer”. All fun and games so far. But things got serious when the real Simu Liu shared this fan post and simply wrote “🍺”.
Liu’s Threads post has now reached over 85,000 views. In countless comments below, fans are even calling for their idol to replace Jackie Chan in a remake of RUSH HOUR (1998). The likeable and fit Canadian with Chinese roots doesn’t have to worry about unemployment for the time being.
So will we see Simu Liu as Wei Shen in SLEEPING DOGS in classic Jackie Chan style? The setting of Hong Kong is perfect for this. But so far, the action team responsible is not even known. It is possible that Andy Cheng, a veteran and former member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, will take over. After all, he has been working on big-budget Hollywood productions for years from his adopted home of Los Angeles.
This wouldn’t be the first time Liu and Cheng have worked together. They already had great chemistry in SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS (2021), which also featured former Jackie Chan Stunt Team member and good friend of Cheng’s, Brad Allan. Sadly, Brad Allan passed away in 2021 before the film’s premiere, but his legacy lives on in many international productions, where he incorporates the fast-paced, comedic, prop-using style of Jackie Chan, his own idol and mentor.
And since it was already announced in 2025 that Jackie Chan visited the set of SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY in Europe because his team was responsible for the action scenes, it seems likely that Big Brother will at least pay a visit to his buddy Simu Liu on the set of SLEEPING DOGS. This would be his way of returning the favour for Liu’s visit to Canada in 2024 during the filming of KARATE KID: LEGENDS (2025).
There is another nerdy reference to Jackie Chan in the video game “Sleeping Dogs”. The character’s outfits can be changed within the game. One of them is Jackie Chan’s famous jeans and shirt outfit from RUMBLE IN THE BRONX (1995). A bootleg version of the game from China even features Jackie Chan on the cover.
Only time will tell whether Chan the Man will be part of the film adaptation. Until further information is available, we’ll just have to wait and see… and hold Simu Liu’s beer!
