Ip Man (2008)

[Mofo Rising]

Ip Man is a loose retelling of the life of a real person and his experiences during the Japanese invasion of China during WWII. Ip Man is well known for teaching the Wing Chun style of fighting in China, and for being an early teacher of Bruce Lee. This I found out after I watched the movie.

In the first part of the movie, Ip Man is the very model of a Chinese gentleman who knows a lot of kung fu. Before the Japanese invasion, his days are brightly lit and filled with nothing more trifling than getting into playful battles with wannabe kung fu champions while appeasing his wife who prefers him to spend time with her and his son rather than fighting with his pals.

After the Japanese invade, things get pretty dark, tonally and in the color scheme of the movie. Ip Man, like every other Chinese, can barely make ends meet. He happens upon a "fighting tournament" run by the Japanese, where Chinese martial art masters must fight Japanese soldiers for small bags of rice. Ip Man must find the inner strength in himself to fight the Japanese, as well as inspire his fellow Chinese at the same time.

The movie's pretty nationalist. It may seem somewhat jarring how the Japanese are portrayed in this film (evil to the core). It really isn't that different from how Nazis are portrayed in most Western films. It's okay to hate Nazis. If you liked Quentin Tarantino's revenge fantasy against Nazis in Inglourious Basterds, you might get an idea of how satisfying Ip Man's absolutely brutal beatdown of the Japanese invaders is in this film.

Speaking of beatdowns, the fighting choreography in this movie is fantastic. Sammo Hung (star of Enter the Fat Dragon) steps up here. The elaborate ballet of kung fu takes advantage of a really good cinematographer so that the fight scenes are simultaneously amazing and comprehensible. This isn't really a small feat, since each fight consists of lightning fast reversal moves that could easily be lost without filmmakers talented enough to let the audience follow them. When the winning party (usually Ip Man) finally manages to beat his opponent, it never feels like cheating (and yes, the hits look like they hurt).

Part biopic, part revenge fantasy, mostly nationalist screed, Ip Man is well worth watching. I wish there was a bit more nuance to the script (the Japanese really are portrayed as pure evil), and some of the acting leaned towards the poor.

4 out of 5 stars.

[dean]

I really liked this when I first saw it, and I have the sequel queued up ready to go.  Have you seen it?  I've heard good things, but not around these here parts...

You're right about Sammo Hung, he does a great job with this and I was pretty impressed.

[Archivist]

I think this movie is fantastic.  The direction and storytelling is good, and the fight scenes are dazzling.  While the historical accuracy is a little creative, there are some supposedly real moments portrayed in the movie as well.  Ip Man supposedly did rip a pistol out of someone's hand, but the urban legend grew that he flicked the chamber out of the side of the revolver, or that he snapped the gun in half!  IRL Ip Man never beat down ten Japanese blackbelts, though.

Kenji Kawai did a superb job with the score, and it is good to hear his work reprised and extended in Ip Man 2. 

If you thought Ip Man was nationalistic, you should see how strong it is in Ip Man 2.  It's important to keep in mind a couple of things: there is a real resurgence in nationalistic pride in mainland China movies, which has been influencing Hong Kong movies over the last several years as well.  Especially when you are talking about Ip Man, where the movie is set during the Japanese occupation. 

The second is that for many Chinese who were there, the Japanese were incredibly brutal, and during WWII they did some mindbogglingly nasty things.  We might watch a lot of gory movies, but some of the horrific things that the Japanese did during WWII, particularly Unit 731, make a lot of horror movies look tame.  It's stomach-turning stuff if you read about some of it, including the non-anesthetised amputation and vivisection of prisoners of war, deliberate infection with all manner of bacteria and the like.  The Nazi's did terrible things, but they were not alone in that.

Ip Man 2 is also a good movie, although not as enjoyable as the first, IMO.  The fight scenes are incredible as always, but they really leaned on the nationalism too hard, even by the last movie's standards.  In Ip Man 2 the British are made out to be the oppressors, and IRL they were, but Ip Man 2 emphasizes it.  I watched it in a cinema full of Chinese people who were clapping and cheering whenever Donnie Yen landed a hit on the British villain in the movie.  It was a bit creepy.

For those who want to watch Ip Man, don't don't don't watch a dodgy pirate Chinese copy.  I saw one with the worst subtitles, as they translated DIRECTLY from dialogue, rather than give the meaning of what they said.  For example, the subtitles would say, 'master, they are here to kick hall!' or somesuch.  'Kick hall' is the literal character-for-character translation of 'challenge'.  In Cantonese, 'tek kwoon' literally means 'kick training hall', which is used when a martial artist would challenge another school to a fight.  As another example, instead of saying 'wing chun', the name of the style, they repeatedly gave the translation of the name, which is something like 'spring flower' or some nonsense.

Ip Man is a real treat for Hong Kong kungfu movie fans and even for those not that familiar with the genre.  It tells a human story and provides a lot of great action, too.

[Jim H]

Probably the best kung fu film of the past 10 years, Ip Man is a lot of fun with some good drama.  And Donnie Yen, it might have taken him 20 years, but he finally proves he can act.  9/10.

Ip Man 2 is also worth a watch.  The portrayal of the British villain in it is so ridiculous and over the top it borders on racism, but it's still a fairly entertaining film.  Sammo Hung plays a part in this, and he practically died filming his role.  He had a cardiac episode and refused to stop filming for hours.  The man is a machine.

Ip Man 2 is a 7/10.