A decent well-made martial arts film.

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2019)

'Ip Man' is a solid martial arts film with plenty of action set-pieces and impressive fight choreography to keep you entertained. The plot is simple, but straightforward and uncomplicated - which allows the film to focus on other aspects such as the characters. In particular, Donnie Yen (who plays Ip Man) is a charismatic protagonist, playing a stoic grandmaster of Wing Chun who also manages to have some personality and a sense of humour about him. Speaking of personality, the set design is excellent with many memorable, characterful locations (e.g. the darkened prison-like Japanese dojo; the bombed out streets of Fo Shan; Ip Man's tranquil home at the beginning of the film etc.). In turn, the set design is shown off through the cinematography, which simultaneously draws attention to the fight choreography through finely tuned shot compositions (even if it does fall back on 'shakycam' a bit too much). The main issue with the film is with its pacing, which is incredibly slow at the start, decent in the middle, and ridiculously rushed at the end. Because of this, the beginning of the film can feel rather boring and the epilogue doesn't feel complete or satisfying. Instead, there are on-screen captions saying what happened to Ip Man after he was shot through the shoulder and escaped to Hong Kong - a classic example of telling and not showing.
Overall: 7/10, maybe a high 6 or low 7?