Ip Man

If you love martial arts you must see this film. Great fight sequences but something that is quite rare in Martial arts films a decent story as well to go along with the action.Life is good for Ip man. He is wealthy (not quite sure how) and respected within his home province in China. He has a good life he spends his days training in the art of Wing Chun and his evening private sparing/duelling with the masters and sometimes the other martial arts schools, but not leaving enough time for his wife and son. As these are private nobody is supposed to know who wins or loses. Ip Man, usually destroys his opponents without any permanently damaging shots. He also refuses to open his own school or taken any decuples/students.An aggressive group of Northern martial artists come to his town and destroying the masters of the other dojos in public Duels. Disappointed with the level of the fighters they find they are told to fight the top practitioner of Foshan Ip Man. After being shamed into this fight Ip Man agrees to a private duel, in which case is soundly thrashes the new comers restoring the reputation of Foshan.Years later Japan invades China, seizing land, property and money from the Chinese. They take over Ip Man's house and he is left with a few possessions he forced to pawn for food for his family. When this is not enough he is forced for the first time to get a job to provide for his family. While at work the Japanese general (an honourable man and martial arts enthusiast) asks for volunteers to fight in his tournaments if they win they will receive a bag of rice for every fighter they beat. Some of the former martial arts students and masters do not really care about the rice but want a crack at the Japanese.The Colonel under the general is not at all honourable and has not love for the Chinese, he shoots one of the masters who over reaches in his second bout. His former student takes a fight with the general and refuses to give up and is beaten to death. This ignites a spark in Ip Man he fully unleashes his Wing Chun on the student/soldiers in the tournament. Impressing the general he is told to come back but Ip Man is not interested in playing these games. So the general send soldiers to bring him in, when they threaten his family he is forced to attack them, now he must go into hiding. However he is forced to help out some friends and countrymen being extorted by bandits. Captured by the Japanese he challenges the general to a fight. The general accepts and allows the whole of Foshan to watch. The Colonel is not so sure even the general can beat Ip Man so he tells him if he wins he will be killed.Can Ip Man wins and survive or is he to become a martyr to start a Chinese revolution? Great film. Great fight scenes; there is only one down side of this film for me. In this film Ip Man is simply just too much for any of the fighter. It is like watching a world class fighter beat the crap out of the local talent. This is no one in this film to even come close to his level. It is like everyone in this film is from level 8 to 10 and he is a 15. I don't think he took more than 3 punches in the whole film. As stated a must see for all martial arts fans.

I have been looking forward to seeing this film for ages and I was not dissappointed. I don't want to delve too much into martial arts analysis, Wing Chun Lineage - even overall historical accuracies - just want to appraise it aknowledging that I want film lovers and martial artists alike to enjoy it.I feel the film delivered on so many levels, I genuinely believe that of all genres, the martial arts film arena is especially difficult to craft a genuinely spectacular and innovative film. And this is probably why the film succeeds - and had the greatest impression on me since the humble yet excellent Ong Bak.Donnie Yen is great in the lead role, with a very competent cast to accompany him - all their performances are natural and sincere and genuinely help this film ascend from just a 'Martial arts epic ' to an individually great film. Yen captures the true spirit of Master - he is a sincere and humble husband and father, but when he has to fight - it is without hesitation and utterly relentless. This aspect also deserves credit - both how Yen handles the fight scenes - with real accomplishement and grace and in tandem, how well the fight scenes are choreographed. I respect that they haven't gone for the wow factor but have depicted it as real combat - like Wing Chun itself - simple, effective and brutal - no glamour or gimmicks - this again will impact on new audiences, and, on the whole satisfy Martial Arts and Wing Chun practitioners alike.And the blu ray itself, although imbued on a muted pallete of colour, the film looks and flows beautifully - really demonstrating the painstaking attention to detail in the sets and elegantly capturing the frenetic combat in clinical detail rather than a flurried blur.As I said before I wanted to look at this film openly....admittedly I myself am a dedicated Wing Chun practitioner of 10 yrs so far - but also a film lover too - and this film inspired me in my training and made me watch it three times over the weekend. A class act.

The charismatic Donny Yen is at his best, both in terms of acting the role and his astonishing skill as a martial artist. The choreography is wonderful and at times jaw-dropping.. the 10-man fight scene is iconic. You'll watch it to see the Kung Fu, but it was also an entertaining, emotionally charged biography with a memorable villain and satisfying conclusion...and the sequel Ip Man 2 is just as good.

Ip man is loosley based on the real life avents of a chinese man called ip man also known as yip man, yip man is famously known as the man who taught bruce lee wing chun kung fu, even thow yip man didnt teach bruce that often because he didnt realy want to be seen teaching a half american a secret chinese martial art (and for very good reason, TRIADS) and their fore got his nephew to do most of bruce lees tutoring, anyway, the movie ip man is LOOSLEY based on ip mans life before and during the second world war, ip man was a rich man before the war and spent most of his time practising kung fu, then the japanese invaded china and ip man lost his fortune and went hungry as did the rest of china, in the movie ip man takes on the japanese by himself and batters the hell out of japanese soldiers, as well as a couple of nourthen cina men, the character ip man is played by donnie yen who learned wing chun in 9 months for the role, and to see donnie in action its hard to believe, because he is awsome and leathal, its as if he has been doing wing chun his whole life, he also plays ip man very well, i would definatley recomend this movie to any one who likes martial arts movies or is interested in ip man, i also recomend the film to anyone who thinks that watching someone getting punched 20 times in the face at 100 miles an hour is funny, you can just fast forward to the violence and laugh your head off.