An extraordinary martial-art film

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2008)

I'll start with the martial art aspect. The Wing Chun style is not the best material for popular action movies. Its characteristic is motion efficiency: lighting fast movements and direct strikes, an approach that inspired Bruce Lee in the creation of his own style. While deadly effective, Wing Chun is not very exciting to watch. Furthermore, its kicks are low profile (both literally and figuratively), not the flying kicks that have become almost mandatory for today's popular kung-fu flicks. "Ip Man"'s portrayal of this martial art style is quite authentic, granting a certain creative liberty for cinematic effects, understandably. Immensely satisfying for someone whose has some experience (albeit modest) with this style, such as this IMDb user, this movie may not satisfy those who are used to the usual Jet Li, Wu Jing (or indeed Donnie Yen) stuff.
"Ip Man", however, is much more than an action movie. Like "Fearless" (2006), it is the biopic of a great martial art master. Interestingly (and this parallel has just occurred to me as I write), its riches-to-rags plot line has some similarity to "Cinderella Man" (2005). But it has a loftier backdrop  survival with pride, compassion and dignity under the atrocities of Japan's occupation of Southern China during WW II.
The action scenes can be grouped into three segments which also serve to outline the story. The first group occurs during a time when Master Ip, bathing in affluence, leads a low-profile life with his family (lovely wife and little boy), basically doing nothing other than perfecting the love of his life, the Wing Chun style martial art. The fights, fuelled by challengers (both local and outsiders), take place behind closed doors in his plush house so that the invariably beaten challengers are not embarrassed. The second arena is the factory of a life-long friend (Simon Yam), when he trains the workers to defend themselves against bullies, and later gets involved himself in helping them to beat off harassing goons. By this time, he has been reduced to abject poverty (house and possession confiscated by the occupying Japanese), working as a coal miner. The last group of fights is set at the barracks of a Japanese general who, being a martial art fanatic, offers sacks of rice to lure coal miners who are ex-martial-art experts to duels with his people and himself. As expected, the climatic final duel is between Master Ip and this general.
Unlike in many other good-against-evil movies, "Ip Man" does not succumb to handing out one-dimensional villains. Policeman-turned-interpreter Li Chiu's (Lam Ka Tung) agonized scream that he is not a traitor but just an interpreter struggling to survive does get a degree of sympathy. A bullying goon's outburst that he does not want to go hungry virtually echoes Scarlet O'Hara. Even the Japanese general is portrayed more as a martial arts fanatic than a blood-thirty villain.
In "Ip Man" is a Donnie Yen that you have never seen before and it is not surprising that many consider this to be Yen's best cinematic performance to-date. From the quietly confident, gentle man who wants to avoid trouble, to the impoverished husband-and-father finding himself suddenly quite useless but rising to the occasion, to the fighter enraged by the senseless death of his martial art friends  Yen is right on pitch. In an interview ("bc Magazine" of Hong Kong), 85-year-old Ip Chun, who is Master Ip's little son in the movie, asserts that Yen's performance finds the essence of his father. Yen's portrayal of Master Ip is indeed a source of pride to Wing Chun students all over the world.