If you regular read my posts you should know I am a huge Wong Kar Wai fan. In fact I think he is the greatest film maker alive today. The only French New Wave director still making films, so I have long been anticipating his take on the story of Bruce Lee’s Master Ip Man, which was in fact the first film announced on this subject, but there have been so many out based on him now, though this one is of course very different. First off it stars the great Tony Leung Chiu Wai, one of the finest actors in the world as Ip man, and of course being by Wong Kar Wai it is a very different film. Yes it has awesome and incredibly visual fight scenes, but it is a much sadder and more languid film about the sadness in the great Ip man’s life, and those surrounding him. It is a wonderful if melancholy film that really is another must see. It is gorgeous, well acted and directed, and film to show just how great of a director Wong Kar Wai really is, and hopefully another best actor not for the great Leung Chiu Wai.
Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays Ip Man. We start with an amazing fight scene in the rain with Ip Man fighting many martial artists in a heavy rain. It looks awesome is worth seeing the movie to see. We then see some of his early training with his master Chan Wah Shun (the great Yuen Woo Ping) and his marriage to his lovely and understanding wife Cheung Wing Sing (played by South Korean actress Song Hye Kyo), and we hear how the first part of his life was the spring and was all good up until age of 40.
Then Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang), the main martial arts master from Northern China, who has united many martial arts styles arrives, and already declared that his protege Ma San (Zhang Jin) will be his successor, but also decides that in the south there should be a southern master. Many fights erupt in the whorehouse where the martial artists meet, but Ma San beats them all until Gong Yutian sends him back home. Gong Yutian daughter, martial artist Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi) arrives and wants the fight to stop, as she wants to succeed, but cannot as when she marries she will give up her name to her husbands. The Southern Masters decide that Ip Man and his Wing Chun should represent them.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…
3 Southern Masters all challenge Ip Man, and he defeats them all, learning as he goes. And the fight with Gong Yutian turns out to be a philosphy battle with some martial arts mixed in, and Ip Man manages to win. Gong Yutian goes home, but Gong Er challenges Ip man, and they fight with the loser breaking anything in the gorgeous whorehouse. Ip is about to win, but he likes Gong Er as she likes him, and he helps her, and she keeps going and Ip Man breaks a stair, so she wins, but she leaves with them being friends.
The two keep in touch, and Ip man intends to visit her in Northern China, but the Second Sino Japanese War breaks out, and they cannot travel. Ip man goes broke, losing his home to the japanese and having to sell almost everything including his coat to go to northern China of which he keeps a single button. His daughters die of starvation and his leaves him.
In Northern China Ma San starts working for the Japanese and goes to fight his master, and though it seems Gong Yutian won, he is mortally wounded and dies afterward. Gong Er gives up her arranged marriage to be the martial arts successor of her father and vows revenge on Ma San, the child her father took in.
Ip Man moves to Hong Kong and wants to become a teacher, but must fight to win, and ears a reputation and a school.
Meanwhile a former Chinese agent “The Razor” Tixiantian (Chang Chen) has set up a barber shop in Hong Kong as well.
Ip Man meets Gong ER again on New Year’s Eve of 1950 and asks to fight her again, wanting her to start a martial arts school, but she refuses, and says her martial arts will die with her, and she is smoking opium. And we see that she did indeed fight and kill Ma San, but was badly injured in the fight in 1940, and can’t fight anymore.
In 1952 they meet one more time, and she admits she had romantic feelings for him the whole time, but could do nothing about it because of her vow. She dies a short time later.
We see Ip Man’s school flourish and learn he died in 1972, with students like Bruce Lee having trained under him.
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As I said a very melancholy film, but beautiful with gorgeous martial arts sequences and really a must see!
