Good Film

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2017)

The film Ip Man follows the story of a rich martial arts enthusiast in the Chinese city of Foshan in the 1930s and 40s. Although he is the best in all of southern China, he doesn't run a martial arts school, like many of the other enthusiasts. He simply practices it because it's his passion. A northerner comes into town and beats all of the schools in the area in an attempt to show the superiority of northern fighting styles, open his own school, and get rich. He ends up challenging Ip Man and loses. Shortly after, Japan invades China in 1937. This marks the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and later WWII. Ip Man's estate is confiscated by the Japanese and turned into their headquarters in Foshan. He, along with his family and friends, is forced to live in decrepit apartments and abject poverty. Ip Man manages to find a job in a coal mine and helps defend a cotton mill his friend invested in from a group of Chinese bandits lead by the northern martial artist from the beginning of the film. General Miura, the Japanese general in charge of Foshan holds daily martial arts duels between the Chinese citizens and Japanese trainees. If the Chinese participant wins, he is granted a bag of rice. Ip Man eventually challenges Miura after he is ordered to teach the Japanese trainees his superior form of martial arts. Ip Man defeats Miura and is later shot in the shoulder. He survives and successfully escapes to Hong Kong with his family as the war ends. Overall, I liked almost every aspect of this film. It was action packed and although the storyline was a little cheesy and cliché it was still captivating. Not once did this movie manage to bore me. The only time the movie was hard to watch was during the one or two sad scenes where someone would die. One thing I noticed is that the death scenes were very emotional and somewhat exaggerated. The cinematography and choreography were very impressive as all of the fight scenes appeared very well practiced and professional. I expected it to be a less serious, more fun movie being about martial arts and such, but it ended up being really good. Also, this movie opened my eyes to the Japanese atrocities towards the Chinese in WWII. I had always heard of them but never really researched them at all and I think this movie did a good job of at least portraying what the typical life of a typical Chinese man was during the second world war. I had heard of this movie before multiple times but never came around to watching it. I'm glad I picked it for my final.