IP Man

Home
Smell the Movies
Smell the TV

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Year:	2008
Country of origin:	Hong Kong / China
Director:	Wilson Yip
Genre:	Quality martial arter
Starring:	Donnie Yen
Rating:	5/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220719/
Tagline:	Mentor of iconic legend Bruce Lee
Favourite line:	N/A - Subtitled

Highly regarded martial arts movie, about the man who taught Bruce Lee the secrets of Kung Fu.

The plot:
Ip Man is a master of Wing Chun Kung Fu.
He has founded an illustrious academy in the district of Fo Shan, China, where he is highly respected and revered, but a group of outsiders also have designs on setting up the number one academy in the district.
Ip Man and his family fall on hard times when the Japanese invade. People can no longer afford the coaching he provides, so he is forced to shovel coal to earn a living. There, he encounters General Miura, also a keen student of martial arts, who selects the strongest and fittest employees to quite literally fight for food.
Ip Man wants no part of it, despite the encouragement of others until, one day, he witnesses one of his countrymen being killed for no good reason.
It's time for the master to step into the fray in order to redress the balance....

Starting off fairly light-hearted, there are moments when worry sets in.
Oh no, this is going to be a knockabout, goof-ball martial arts comedy.
Then, the Japanese invade, and the tone shifts.
Suddenly impoverished, the titular character must struggle and scrape to survive, lending the movie an air of tension and a level of depth it initially looked incapable of.
Donnie Yen, something of a superstar in Hong Kong and his native China, is excellent as the master turned vengeful warrior, equally comfortable in the character moments as he is with the action though, of course, it is with the latter that he truly shines.
Remarkable feats of human ability are displayed throughout, though they are tempered somewhat by the over-reliance on gravity-defying wire work, which is such a damn shame, and deeply frustrating. The choreography is truly amazing, the performers near superhuman at times, so why ruin it by making people think it’s all pretend?
Broody lidicurous.
Plenty of fighting on show, with no more than five minutes passing between battles, it does get a bit silly as, no matter the conflict or argument, seems it can all be solved with a good old Wing-Chun off but, to complain about the fighting in a martial arts film seems rather churlish. So I won’t. It’s goes with the territory. Like shit songs in a musical.
Truthfully, from the title and the little I had seen whilst Mrs. Mosefus watched it in advance, thought this was going to be dull as tits on a Tuesday morning.
Thankfully, I was quite, quite wrong.