Impressive storyline and stunning fight scenes

Rating: Null/10 (21 April 2009)

This movie is a biopic about Ip Man, the most influential master of the Wing Chun martial art. This is one of the few martial arts movies where I was actually impressed by the storyline. It's not the first time a World War II setting was used for a martial arts movie, since the Jet Li movies "Fist of Legend" and "Born to Defend" were also set during World War II. However, the plots in those movies were essentially the same old revenge story lines, which Ip Man most certainly is not. This movie is rather about a martial artist just trying to scrape a living in a time of war and poverty, like how "The Cinderella Man" was about a boxer trying to make a living during the Great Depression.
On top of the very good storyline, the fight scenes are also very impressive, so much so that it inspired me to start taking Wing Chun classes again (I went once before but didn't return until last week). The weird thing is that I found out that our local Wing Chun sifu (master) had trained under Ip Man's son and was one of the choreographers for the movie. It turns out that was the main reason why a lot of his other students joined his classes, although I had no idea about this myself.
As for the performances, Donnie Yen is clearly the star of the show. It's nice to see him finally getting such a major role, which he has performed brilliantly, not only in the incredible fight scenes but also in his subtle portrayal of Ip Man's struggles. The supporting cast also gave memorable performances, particularly Lynn Hung as his wife Yong Cheng, Lam Ka-Tung as Inspector Li Zhao, Xing Yu as Lin, Siu-Wong as Jin Shan Zhao, and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi as General Miura.
My only criticisms against this movie is that the last one-third of the movie was largely fictionalized, the final showdown itself felt a bit anti-climatic in comparison to the more exciting earlier fight scenes, and the finale came off as somewhat melodramatic. Other than that, this film is a must-see for all martial arts movie fans.
8/10