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.