Ip Man 2 (Wilson Yip)

Training for a boxer.

The first Ip Man film's extreme sentimentality and some added weight of cliche were very tolerable as the story was very compelling anyway. Ip Man 2 started with the same promise of a great narrative (backed by a wonderful recreation of 1950's Hong Kong), initially focusing on Yip Man's family's urban plight since the second World War ravaged Foshan. But then the countless cliches start to set in: The arrogant turned loyal apprentice, the bandit turned humorous sideshow Jin Shanzhao, and lastly, the Rocky Balboa-Apollo Creed-type relationship between Yip Man and Hung (played by the film's action director Sammo Hung).

The fight scenes, although there's that same old hard-hitting effect, lost its degree of believability, especially in the scene of Yip Man's test to carry on with his martial club. Kung-Fu Masters jumping from small chairs to small chairs to reach a table with dead-set accuracy (and with a physically recognizable use of some wires) and numerous other small doses of gravity defiance. And the performances of those Brit actors. They were too damn over-the-top and annoying that they ended up looking like caricature characters that were just inserted for the sake of single-minded propaganda.

This is not a scathing review. More of one founded with disappointments towards the film's plot elements and characterizations. And though I like it when master Yip meets a worthy opponent (the Japanese in the first film ate truck loads of chain punches) once in a while, I hate how they portrayed a great adversary as a trash-talking lunkhead. And they gave him a great fight. He almost defeated Yip Man, for crying out loud. Based on Master Yip's reputation as a transcendent figure of the martial arts world, the boxer's not worth it.

Amusing scene of a young Bruce Lee (they really got a child actor that looked like him) naively requesting a Wing Chun lesson from Yip Man, though.

FINAL RATING

Ip Man (Wilson Yip)

Fight scene.

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 21, 2010)

('Yip Man' is the person, 'Ip Man' is the film, just so anyone who bothers to read this review may easily identify which is which)

Call it too propagandistic, call Yip Man's cinematic rendition overly romanticized, but this film is possibly one of the best martial arts films I've seen, both for its flawless fight choreography (by Sammo Hung) and riveting narrative. And yes, Screw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for its wires, Yip Man can cut them with a single swat.

Donnie Yen is very impressive playing the legendary title role, having the quiet capability of administering his authority and presence thoroughly felt even at the film's very beginning. Aside from being a medium for artful fistfights, "Ip Man" also treated martial arts as an engrossing cultural craze that stormed 1930's China as an unexpected fad among the higher class.

The film isn't just about the fictionalized exploits of a Wing Chun grand master formerly living in the shadows of his superstar apprentice that founded the Jeet Kune Do fighting system (you know who he is), but also an uncommon (though a bit honey-glazed, I must admit) exploration of unconditional Chinese patriotism in the midst of imperial occupation.

Before, if somebody mentions to me the name 'Yip Man', I'll immediately visualize a thin old man slowly and wearily sparring with Bruce Lee. But after watching this film, a martial arts demigod more or less.

(Note for those who have already seen the film: The image above is simply captioned 'fight scene'. Need I say more?)

FINAL RATING