Aight ya'll sing it with me.. Everybody wants kung fu fighting.. Hoo!
Ip Man is some sort of a biographical film about the legendary master of Wing Chun in China and is also prominent for being the teacher of Bruce Lee. The film follows Ip Man's rise to prominence in the 1930's and the struggle he faces with his family during the Japanese occupation.
You know.. If I am ever getting myself into a bar fight, Imma make sure that Ip Man is my drinking buddy. Cause damn this man kicks some serious ass in this movie. The movie has some of the most intense and well choreographed fight scenes I have seen in a long time. Casting Donnie Yen to play Ip Man was a really great choice. This guy is the total shits!
He's a fantastic actor and he does a great job in this. I'm not sure how close his portrayal was to the real Ip Man but I bought his character as a man who feels like Wing Chun is a dying art and though it's his responsibility to pass the art on, he doesn't want to sacrifice his relationship with his family to do so. But that changes in the character when the Japanese comes and we then see Ip Man losing everything and really doesn't give a shit anymore.
There is once scene where Ip Man's taking on 10 fighters and this dude practically snaps one of the fighters leg out of it's socket. I kid you not. And then he goes and hails a billion punches one after another on some poor guy's face. But what made all of this really frightening was the look on Donnie Yen's face. He had no soul in his eyes, and it almost felt like Ip Man was enjoying it. I'm scared of Donnie Yen hahaha.
I love the cinematography of the film. In the first part it's very clean with shades red and gold to symbolize the renaissance age of kung fu in China. Then it transitions to gritty, harsh and gray once the Japanese takes over to signify the loss of innocence in the land. And it all helps make that transition of the movie from a happy movie into a violent one. And the score of the film is pretty great to. Especially for the fight scenes, it adds that extra oomph to the scenes.
And there is a chick in this movie who plays Ip Man's wife. I got her name right here.. Lynn Hung. Damn she's fine. It's really sad that she doesn't have much scenes in this movie and is more or less a pretty backdrop in the film.
But one thing that I would complain about the movie is the portrayal of the Japanese army in the film. We get a sense that these people have no soul whatsoever and are only doing this for pleasure. We get scenes where they are literally bashing children and making up this gladiator kind of match ups where their karatekas are beating poor ordinary folk for pleasure. C'mon......
Fantastic kung fu movie, hope they make an Ip Man 2 and have Ip Man vs. The Hulk or something hahahaha.
RATING: 7/10
