IP Man

Ip Man is a Hong Kong martial arts action film, was made based on the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art  Wing Chun and also the first person to teach the art openly. This film was directed by Wilson Yip  and stars  Donnie Yen, with martial arts choreography by Sammo Hung.

Ip Man was the most famous for teaching Bruce Lee. He was also the man of honor who live with his dignity, strong character and philosophy, willing disposition, intelligence, heart and soul. According to the movie, during the days of Japanese occupied China, he was suffering from poverty, and since he witnessed his neighbor being killed for a pocket of rice by Japanese. He proved his mettle by essentially beating the Japanese superiority.

The movie was predictable, nothing special, and quite simple plot, light hearted action film. Similarly, Jet Li seemed tailor made for Fearless, Donnie Yen with Ip Man, that I found that two films share much in common. However, “Ip Man” did expose accurately over a number of historical truths about the real man. To me, Not like Flash Point, or Dragon Tiger Gate, Silver Hawk, the film casted out not only the beauty of Kung-Fu, but the martial-arts’ philosophy. For example, when Ip Man had another martial artist (Master Liao) come to challenge, respectfully Ip Man didn’t accept the competition until finished his dinner with his family which showed me how much he respects his family’s time. Additionally, another henchmen of Jin Shan Zhao were going around challenging various wushi schools in Foshan; obnoxiously he rushed into Ip Man’s mansion to challenge in order to earn reputation in town. Though how rude and ill-manner Zhao was, Ip Man was friendly and moderate to Zhao. Finally even Zhao lost, he upheld the regional pride of Ip Man and other masters in Foshan.

I also like some understatement brilliant philosophy from Ip Man and the Chinese cop turned Japanese translator. Ka Tung Lam who played the Chinese cop role was notably and excellently proved himself as the film’s best actor with his deep and natural performance when he showed the very fine line between traitor and survivor especially during war-time occupations.

I enjoyed the movie because it was perfectly merged humor, tragedy, ass-kicking, historical events and characters, and deep emotion. Regardless to say, the cinematography is excellent with the exception of the depiction of the Wing Chun Style, the film was freshly carried out. Also, the film’s sequence was perfectly edited to attract the audience. Even though, the story overtly portrayed the character as the perfect man in the world, the film yet tightly held the pure perspective of Kung-Fu and philosophy.

Asian American Female acting in movies

Throughout Asian American movies I enjoyed, I noticed that most of Asian American movies are starred by male leading roles. Obviously, we know a handful of recognizable young Asian American leading men working in Hollywood movies and rarely know an Asian American leading women. Regardless to say, we know so much about Chinese Kung-Fu in films through Jackie Chan, Yun-Fat Chow, Jet Lee; however, they were born and grown up in the U.S, therefore I don’t think that they can be count as Asian America actors.

Ken Watanabe— born in Niigata Prefecture, Japan starred in Inception (2010), Shanghai (2010), Letters from Iwo Jima (2007), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), Batman Begins (2005), and so on. John Cho—from Seoul, South Korea was playing as the young Mr. Sulu in Star Trek. Justin Chon played Peter Wu in the Disney Channel Film “Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior”, and also acted in Twilight and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Stephen Chow has announced as a Hong Long action star from “The Green Hornet” movie. There are at least 10 Asian leading actors that I have seen popularly in American movies. Yet, where are Asian leading actresses?

As another famous Kung-Fu artist, Michelle Yeoh starred with Yun-Fat Chow in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; with Jet Li in The Mummy 2 and 3, with Jackie Chan in SuperCop, and with Ziyi Zhang in Memoirs of a Geisha, and et cetera.

As I mentioned above about the overflow and dominance of Asian American leading actors in Hollywood, the Asian American actresses seem to be in the shadow. Mostly I have seen that these actresses usually appear to co-op with other leading male actor as a love interest or supporting male leading. For example, in Lust, Caution, Wei Tang won the Independent Spirit Awards as the Best Female Lead nominee with Tony Leung Chiu Wai as the Best Male Lead nominee. The film itself typically appeals as a pornographic drama movie that assigns strong sexual content, erotic, sitcom-style innuendo. The movement of the movie is quite slow and the physical violence of the intercourse is disturbing. The position of Wei Tang as Yee— an enthusiastic student, who start identifying with the rebellious college group, was coming from desperation and powerlessness.

Again, where can I find Asian American actresses appear without man’s shadow and sexuality?