Chinese: 葉問
Year: 2008
Director: Wilson Yip Wai-Shun
Producer: Raymond Wong Bak-Ming
Writer: Edmond Wong
Action: Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Cast: Donnie Yen Ji-Dan, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Gordon Lam Ka-Tung, Xiong Dai-Lin, Louis Fan Siu-Wong, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Xing Yu, Wong Yau-Nam, Chen Zhihui
The Skinny: Wilson Yip's film about Bruce Lee's master stars a surprisingly subdued DONNNNIIIEEE, and qualifies as a successful action film with exciting choreography. However, it's also a failed biopic with too much history whitewashed to placate the China audience. Still, while Ip Man may be less funny than Flash Point, it's definitely a better film.
Review
by
Kevin Ma: There is one historical fact about real-life martial arts master Ip Man that we can all agree on: the Wing Chun teacher was indeed Bruce Lee’s master for several years in Hong Kong. It’s a fact that producer Raymond Wong Bak-Ming has no hesitation capitalizing on in Wilson Yip’s biopic-action film Ip Man. However, the rest of the film is completely questionable, as Donnie Yen pretty much does what he does in all of his movies in which he possesses the title role: kick ass and ask questions later. In this supposedly true story, the legendary martial arts master kicks the asses of all of his opponents, and no one can stand in Donnie Ip Man’s way.
But when he’s not beating down fellow martial arts masters and Japanese generals, Ip Man is just a rich martial artist in the town of Fo Shan, which is famous for a local street lined with martial arts schools. Ip is not only respected in town for his incredible kung fu skills, but also for his modesty. In fact, he’s so modest that he refuses to take on any students. Ironically, Donnie Yen is one of the least modest martial arts actors in Hong Kong, which makes his performance hard to take in at the beginning.
However, Donnie was able to put away his ego for Ip Man and gives his most subdued performance yet. To make Donnie even appear more subdued, everyone else overacts. Almost overdoing the overacting is Louis Fan, who hams it up as Master Jin, a kung fu master who arrives in Fo Shan from the north to start his own martial arts school by first beating down every competitor in town. Naturally, only Ip Man/Donnie can reclaim the town’s honor, and that’s exactly what happens.
Being a China-Hong Kong co-production, Ip Man spends a majority of its screentime on the kung fu master’s life during the Japanese occupation. This gives an excuse for Yip and co. to satisfy the Chinese audience’s continuing desire to see Japanese ass get kicked by having Donnie/Ip Man do just that. General Miura (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi) sends ex-policeman-turned-translator Li (Gordon Lam) to recruit Fo Shan martial artists to fight his team of cronies. Eventually, Miura is so impressed with Ip Man’s martial arts skills that he asks the master to teach Chinese martial arts to his soldiers. This being a film intended for China, it’s easy to guess what Ip’s answer is. This being a Donnie movie, it’s pretty easy to guess how he responds, too.
Actually, that’s the one other historical fact that screenwriter Edmond Wong gets right. According to whatever recorded history exists, Ip was indeed offered the job of teaching the Japanese martial arts during the occupation, and he did refuse out of principle. However, what Ip Man probably didn’t do was beat down ten soldiers at once with lightning-speed punches to the neck. However, who really cares about historical accuracy when the action is this exciting? Action director Sammo Hung maintains a precarious balance between finesse and brutality in the fight scenes, giving them an adrenaline-pumping intensity that makes Ip Man an equal to SPL in the action department. Despite the usual Donnie posturing and pre-fight antics that can get tiresome, the action star does deliver what he does best when it counts.
Credit also goes to director Wilson Yip and scriptwriter Wong for striking a fine balance between action and drama. Each fight is focused and serves a purpose in the plot, making them easy to get involved in without feeling exhausted when it’s over. Of course, it also helps that Hung leaves the action to real action-oriented actors such as Yen, Louis Fan, and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, who actually has a black belt in Judo. Knowing that these are actually people who have the physical ability to deliver what’s shown on screen significantly helps in getting into the fight scenes.
However, while Ip Man may be a success as an action movie, it’s a failure as a biopic. The story is told in an episodic structure that’s more about what Ip can do rather than who Ip really was. The producers rely on too much on the audience’s good faith, and assume that their titular character is automatically a good man just because they tell the audience that he was Bruce Lee’s master. Rather than a flesh-and-blood character, the Ip Man in Ip Man is more of a folk hero caricature.
Raymond Wong and Wilson Yip are obviously aiming for some kind of potential Once Upon a Time in China-like franchise by portraying Ip as a Wong Fei-Hung-level saint. However, the film plays too fast and loose with facts in order to please Chinese censors and the patriotic Chinese audience, and is unable to find a true-life story that delivers upon the film’s potential. For example, the real Ip escaped to Hong Kong and likely lost his wealth because he was a Kuomintang member - a fact conveniently ignored during the ending intertitles. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, the film was made with the approval of Ip’s eldest son, with the child actor who plays him getting plenty of random cutaway shots that make him a larger presence in the film than he deserves.
Without the crutch of the evil Japanese villains, it will be interesting to see where Wilson Yip takes Ip Man 2, which will presumably show the Wing Chun master taking his brand of ass-kicking to Hong Kong, where he becomes Bruce Lee’s teacher. However, by then Hong Kong’s favorite auteur Wong Kar-Wai will also be working on his own Ip Man biopic with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in the lead. Given that, it may have been wise for Wilson Yip to make Ip Man a pure action film without regard for real history. After all, Wong Kar-Wai’s version will likely deliver better drama, acting and historical accuracy than Ip Man. But, as long as Donnie keeps delivering lightning-speed punches to his opponents for the rest of the Ip Man franchise, Yip’s take on Ip will always be worth watching. (Kevin Ma, 2009)
This movie is about Bruce Lee's master. Ip Man was awesome and he was a beast in the MA category. I absolutely enjoyed this movie. Favorite fight. He basically asks to fight 10 black belts at the same time and two of them get a drum roll.
Was a good scene, was also a bit of a rip-off from Fist of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection), where Bruce Lee's character beats five shades of shit out of an entire dojo of karate practitioners.
As a second generation student of Ip Man (also romanized as “Yip Man”), my students asked me about the authenticity of the movie and historical facts. Recently released on DVD in Chinese, I watched it and enjoyed it. Donnie plays my Sigung, Ip Man, in Foshan, China during the Japanese occupation in 1938. In my opinion, much of the movie is completely fictionalized, but lots of fun and entertaining.
Last edited by Impediment on Nov 2nd, 2010 at 06:45 PM
Memorable moments (Note, I highly recomend NOT reading my spoilers until after watching the movie):
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: Opening of the movie when Ip Man faces the new master in town. Pretty good fight and slightly humorous. What makes the fight memorable is the honor Ip Man has: he promises and keeps his promise to not tell others that he defeated that other master or preserve his honor and his way of living.
[SPOILER - highlight to read]: Probably the most powerful moment in the film (imo) is when Ip Man figures out that his friend ("kid" he taught martial arts to, before the occupation) has been killed while fighting for rice, from the Japanese. (He was killed because he was beaten to death by the Japanese General for refusing to back-down, due to him refusing to stain his honor as a Chinese man. When Ip Man finds out, he wants to fight really badly. Then, his collegue and friend, the master her fought in the beginning of the film, is executed right in front of him by the Lieutenant of the Japanese army. This pisses Ip Man off, to no end, and for the first time, Ip Man fights seriously. I don't want to ruin too much of this scene but needless to say, it was very satisfying to watch this because you've experienced Ip and his town be beaten down and shit upon by the occupying forces (and other things) and he finally loses it, but still keeps his cool. It was a silent fury that Donnie Yen did very well portraying. The scene is awesome, on it's own, but is much much better when you've experienced the rest of the film.
I watched it on Netflix which is in HD. They only crappy thing about that is the lack of subtitles. I could only pick up one out of every 10 Japanese words (I do not know Japanese very well(understatement)) and most of the time, that's enough to follow what they are talking about, though.* I recomend renting the DVD/Blu-Ray so you can read what is being said. I personally believe that some of the meaning is lost when the dubbing team tries to adapt sentences that match the movement of the actors' lips. Rent it.
Tell me your thoughts: I hope there's someone out there that enjoyed this movie as much as I did.
*It's in Chinese, but the Japanese speak Japanese, quite a bit (lol).
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I **** like you wanna ****, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I **** like you wanna ****, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
I don't think so. Fearless was good, but it wasn't as good as Ip Man only because Ip Man was a bit more "personable". I just liked the characters better in Ip Man.
Both can be called "generic martial arts school" films, though but Ip Man had more substance than just a generic "big budget" martial arts film.
Truth be told, the films were almost identical. Badass martial artist with money, he goes broke, goes through struggles, then uses his martial arts to bring a nation together. I liked the fight scenes in Fearless better. Jet Li was spot on as Huo Yuanjia. The way he reacted when he found out he had killed Master Chin, and when he gained revenge by killing the nephew, awesome.
This fight scene is better than anything in Ip man:
The best part is from 2:40 to the end.
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All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I **** like you wanna ****, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
Thanks for finding this. I did searches for string literals and it wasn't working too well for me. I know, I know: you did not look too well, did you? I figured after three different string searches, I'd give up.
I was thinking that I'm going to start using Google's advanced search (you can search for string literals on a specific website with their advanced search option.)
Anyway, thanks to the mod that moved this to the correct thread.
I disagree.
A lengthy fight sight does not a good fight scene make.
While the fight scene is quite awesome, there are at least 2 fight scenes in Ip Man that I consider better.
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Jan 29th, 2009 04:23 PM
