You can't keep a good Ip Man down.

Rating: 8/10 (19 April 2012)

Directed by Wilson Yip (Kill Zone, Flash Point), this is a rather fanciful biopic of Ip Man (played by Donnie Yen), the celebrated progenitor of Wing Chun who would eventually become sifu to the world's greatest martial arts star, Bruce Lee. Charting the events in his life that occurred before and during the Sino-Japanese war, the film sees the once prosperous martial artist and his family reduced to penniless, homeless beggars following the invasion of their home town of Foshan. However, when Japanese general Miura (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi) challenges Ip Man to a fight, he gets a chance to fight for his honour, avenge his dead countrymen, and open a catering size can of whoop-ass on his oppressors!
Ip Man is an extremely rose-tinted movie, as one might expect from a Chinese production about a national hero standing up against the tyranny of Japan, but despite its glaring nationalism and an economy with the facts, the film proves to be both a gripping drama and, of course, a bad-ass kung fu flick, with scene after scene of incredible bone-crunching mayhem. The hard-hitting close-quarter combat is brilliantly choreographed by Sammo Hung and flawlessly performed by Yen and his co-stars, and although I've never been a fan of wire-work in a non-fantasy martial arts film (even less so in films based on historical fact), the occasional use of it here detracts very little from the overall effectiveness of the action scenes.
7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.