Ip Man
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Donnie Yen fan and have always been, pretty much since the days Donnie made his debut. At the end of last year, Donnie Yen had a new movie release in HK and as soon as the movie made it’s DVD debut in mid-February, Mike (a friend from HK) snapped up a copy for me (as he always does with new movies).
Ip Man (葉問) is Donnie Yen’s 4th movie teaming up with HK director Wilson Yip and again, this movie is a martial arts action masterpiece.
Who is Ip Man? Well, he is the grandmaster of Wing Chun, one of many styles/forms of Kung Fu. And it just happens so, Bruce Lee was his disciple. Ip Man is actually some kind of legend just like Wong Fei Hung (黃飛鴻) therefore a story/movie about his life was inevitable (especially with Bruce Lee being in a part of his life).
Ip Man and Bruce Lee
I’m not really going to go into detail about the movie besides: Donnie Yen is in the lead role as Ip Man, the movie has a pretty high budget for HK standards, the settings and atmosphere is moody, the characters are well-ish developed, the fight scenes are fantastic (action directed by Sammo Hung), and the story is good.
Apparently, even the producers didn’t expect the movie to do so well – breaking all kinds of box office records in China. To be honest, that result was pretty predictable considering the nature of the story: a China-man surviving the Japanese invasion, he happens to be a kung fu master, and he happens to single-handedly beat the sh*t out of a crapload of Japanese military karate masters, all at once. Basically, any form of Japan-bashing is in itself an ingredient for success… in China.
Anyway, another great Donnie Yen/Wilson Yip movie. Can’t wait for Ip Man 2 this year – about his life in Hong Kong and Bruce Lee will be in it (dunno who will play the man himself, though).
Screengrabs from the gallery section of the DVD:
I enjoyed the movie, acquired it as soon as it came out.
After I saw S.P.L (Saat Po Long) I kind of started to enjoy Donnie Yen’s movies, and this one was another great one. Some parts I thought were off, but can’t put my finger on it. All in all a movie I would recommend!
Nice, old school kung fu. Gotta look for this tone.
You should collect the posters too if you are a fan of Donnie Yen’s Ip man. Cool….
http://www.popcornpop.com/index.php?target=categories&category_id=17
Still need to watch this!!!