Ip Man 2 Review

"Ok, I am Ip Man of Wing Chun."

-Donnie Yen "Ip Man 2"

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Released in 2010 under the direction of Wilson Yip and distributed by Well Go, "Ip Man 2" is a sequel to the martial arts film "Ip Man," a film that was loosely based off the life of martial arts trainer Yip Man, the same man who trained Bruce Lee. While I've always had a weakness for foreign martial arts films along the likes of Jackie Chan, but Ip Man never really caught my interest. I always thought it was just an American butchering of an original foreign flick. In actually, this film was the opposite, it was a film that was made lovingly and with permission from the Ip Man family and made, supposedly, close to Yip's life. Because of my anthropologic background, I, of course, did research and found that yes, Yip Man's life was turbulent and it often times did lead for him to occasionally force his hand when needed. Well, since I've put this review on hold for far too long, I think it's time to get crackin' and see what all the hubbub is about.

Plot: After the events of the first movie, Ip Man (Donnie Yen) moves his family to Hong Kong where he continues to teach the art of Wing Chun as a form to make a living. Despite an early setback, he eventually grabs the attention of future stunt coordinator to Bruce Lee, Wong Shun Leung (Huang Xiaoming) who brings in disciples to make the school thrive. But trouble arises when students from opposing schools start to clash with Ip's students, namely Hung Chun-nam (Sammo Hung) who tries to coerce Ip to retire his school, but Ip refuses to give into his threats. But the movie suddenly takes a change in tone when British boxing champion Taylor "The Twister" Milos (Darren Shahlavi) comes to Hong Kong and insults Chinese boxing, which leads to Master Hung challenging Twister to a fight, where he loses his life. Ip challenges The Twister to a fight for the honor of Chinese martial arts as he utilizes the Eye of the Tiger and defeats Ivan Drago to make an passionate speech about "everyone can change" and…wait….that's not what happened…

Yeah, talk about a complete shift in tone. The first hour of the film has this build-up of Ip losing the lease after his students get into a fight in the streets as he confronts Master Hung and they're about to continue their fight when it just stops as Ip saves Hung's kid from getting a boot to the head and just like that, conflict between them is over and now we're onto the next conflict with Ip's conflict with this racist boxer who kills this old man that Ip initially disliked and then suddenly liked. I know some of you are about to harp on me that it's a concept of respect and honor, but seriously, this narrative transition is so sudden that the movie goes from "The Chinese Connection" to "Rocky IV." I'm aware that this is supposed to have been based off actual events from Yip Man's life, but I did my research and guess what, Taylor Milos doesn't exist. Yeah, the filmmakers, in an effort to create this big climax, literally pulled this racist world champion boxer out of their ass just to give Yip someone to fight. While I have found records of Yip fighting boxers before, barely anyone I could find bore the name "The Twister" or were World Champions. So much for being "authentic to Ip Man's life."

Oh yeah and at the end, the movie does a throwaway with including a kid who's name is Bruce Lee, which is utter bullsh*t as his name while he was in China was Lee Jun-fan, while he was born in San Francisco, his family returned to Hong Kong, 'Bruce' was the name he was given when he moved back to the United States where he did fighting and stunt choreography until he finally got his acting credit from the 1971 film "Fists of Fury" (known overseas as "The Big Boss.") But to be direct, the story is fine, the complete shift in tone was a strange choice to me, as I felt the whole conflict should have been between Ip and Hung and that could have carried the entire movie, but I guess Wilson Yip must have watched "Rocky" the weekend he was writing the screenplay and he decided he wanted to have a scene where Ip beats up a boxer. If this doesn't bother you, that's fine, but it's very distracting to me.

Characters:

Donnie Yen: I want to again point out that upon writing this, I have not seen the first Ip Man so I cannot really judge whether he does a better job here than he does in the previous movie. With that said, this performance is so familiar that I kept thinking I watching a movie from the Shaw Brothers. He's a patient and calm teacher who always has something wise to say for the situation, whenever he fights someone, he always keeps a calm expression on his face, even when he gets beat up, showing very little surpass. Sure he smiles once in a while, but he mostly keeps a straight face. Even Jet Li put more expression into his straight face. Now I know it's not fair to judge an actor by his performance, especially since he's supposed to be playing a real person, but I seriously doubt Yip Man was this stiff.

Lynn Hung: You know how Talia Shire's Adrian character from the Rocky movies just serves to nag and bitch at Rocky for getting into these fights? Well, take that but instead, make her more engaging and removed the bitching and just downplay the nagging and you actually have someone who doesn't hinder Ip's progress to teach or fight. She's supportive when she needs to be and even when Ip has to fight The Twister, she doesn't berate him, she encourages him to fight the bastard.

Huang Xiaoming: Hmm, brash impatient youngster who learns under a master; check that off the list. He's not bad, but once he and Yip have this little talk about remaining vigilant, he doesn't really do much else to the plot, it's like the script forgot about him.

Sammo Hung: You know what? He was the only guy I actually liked more than Ip Man in the movie. Sure, he was kind of a douce bag, but at least the movie developed a reason why he's such an ass. His choreography is impressive as well as his determination to defeat The Twister for his insults really had me rooting for him the most, even if it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to make it to the end of the movie (see what I mean by predictable?) He was the best actor in this film in my opinion, both going for his swift hands and his complex performance.

Darren Shahlavi: He plays a douchebag pretty well. I found his dialogue sounding like it had been dubbed in at times (it sounded that way to me, I don't know about the rest of you) but his assholery should have really been the major drive of the film. Instead, they just throw him in at the half-way point and then, suddenly, now he's our antagonist, but something makes me ask if this guy was supposed to be played by an American since his attitude is more something I would expect out of an American boxer than a Britsh boxer, even if he is racist, at the Brits have a sense of fairness as well…most of the time, this movie takes place after imperialism, what do you expect me to say? I already mentioned this guy was never a real person to begin with, so let's just leave it at that and say, he was an ass and to see Ip whoop his ass is satisfying.

Everyone else is just meh to me. The same sort of performances I expect to see out of Shaw Brothers or Jackie Chan film.

Production: What's there to really say? For a movie that's set in the 1950's, I kept thinking the movie was set in the olden days that most martial arts movies take place. Sure, they have cars and radios but from the way most of Hong Kong looks, you would think it was set in the 1920s or the turn of the century (minus the Victorian era clothing), I don't consider that a criticism but just a nitpick, which still doesn't ruin my view that the movie really looks good and the look of old Hong Kong looks authentic. The choreography is impressive, from fight scenes in a fish market that reminds me of a fight scene from Jackie Chan's "First Strike" where Jackie fights some guys with a table, a broom and a ladder and this one scene where Ip fights the other masters on a table surrounded by stools is actually pretty unique and well crafted. The music is okay, it works when appropriate and it feels authentic, it's no "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" but it works. 

Bottom Line: This was what Hail was trying to insist I watch for 2 months? Well, it's not bad or obnoxious or hair-pulling like "Doomsday" or "Centurion" but it's no "Hero" or "Enter the Dragon." I can forgive a sub-par story with flat characters so long as it has some really great choreography and neat cinematography and a protagonist I can root for. This film had only two of those down; I mean no offense to the Ip family if they should stumble across this, but the hero in this movie comes off as stiff and rather distant to me. For a film that's focused on being authentic to the life the man who trained Bruce Lee, I'm sorry but Bruce knew how to tell a more cohesive story with a character for you to attach yourself to. It's common for martial arts movies to switch gears often times, but this film takes it way too far by switching gears from a "old method vs. new method" theme to turning into the Chinese equivalent of "Rocky." It may have helped if I saw the first one, but HttC said it wasn't necessary, so I took his word for it and, while it at least managed to give some recount of the previous film and why Ip Man is now in Hong Kong, I still found myself left in the dark. Is this a bad movie? Not at all, it's just that there are much more martial arts movies out there, like the Jackie Chan movies, Jackie made a ton of those and his stunt choreography is amazing in them like "Legend of The Drunken Master."

Final Rating: 3/5