28 Dec - It seems that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" is not the only movie ruling the cinemas, as "Ip Man 3" is landing its punches at all the right places. The third instalment of the "Ip Man" series starring Donnie Yen has seen the movie gross RM12 million within just four days of its release since 24 December 2015. This is certainly an extraordinary feat of Hollywood proportions for "Ip Man 3", since it's main competitor "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" also reaped around the same box office collection when it was released on 17 December 2015, making RM 12.3 million during its opening weekend. . In Singapore, "Ip Man 3" had made SGD765 thousand on Christmas day alone, setting it as the holiday's most popular movie over "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". Overall it has grossed SGD2.65 million in its opening weekend in Singapore. This box office performance is rather surprising, considering that many assumed "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" would be the cinemagoers' first choice over other new releases, thus allowing the Space Opera movie to dominate the box office at least for the entire month. However, since it was a four day long weekend last week in Malaysia, it is possible that eager fans of Chinese martial arts films who were not celebrating Christmas, took the opportunity to catch Donnie Yen reprise his role as the Wing Chun grandmaster, thus propelling a high box office collection. "I think that audience should have a choice to watch more than one film, because at the end of the day you are the consumer. This is not a monopolising film industry. So I think we should have more than one choice," said Donnie Yen during our recent interview with him when asked how he feels about "Ip Man 3" and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" being released around the same time frame. Also, "Ip Man 3" producer Raymond Wong had earlier said that he hopes that the film can exceed RM20 million in Malaysia. Despite the competing titles, it is interesting to note that Donnie Yen is also involved in the "Star Wars" universe. The 52-year-old confirms that he had spent the past five months in London to shoot "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (December 2016) the much anticipated "Star Wars" spin-off directed by Gareth Edwards. In "Ip Man 3", Donnie Yen's Ip Man faces a multitude of new challenges as a crooked property developer, played by former professional boxer Mike Tyson, who plans to take over the city with his gang of thugs.