The life of Yip Man, the kung fu master celebrated for spreading the wing chun school of martial arts, gets the silver-screen treatment in Ip Man. Yip, who died in 1972, is best known for his post-war teaching in Hong Kong, where his most notable wing chun student was a teenage Bruce Lee in the ‘50s. But such illustrious company isn’t the focus of this movie’s story, which instead starts in 1935, spans the Japanese occupation of Yip’s southern Chinese hometown Foshan, and ends before he flees the mainland for Hong Kong in 1949.
We’re introduced to Yip Man (Donnie Yen) while he’s a well-off and celebrated martial-arts master in pre-war Foshan, and his skills are first on display in a friendly bout against a local challenger. Another stronger fight against a rough-and-tumble adversary from up North (Louis Fan) makes it clear that Yip is the town’s man to beat and, come Japan’s invasion of China, the occupying forces catch on as well. Reduced to shoveling coal during the war to make ends meet after his mansion is confiscated, Yip is eventually spotted by General Miura (Ikeuchi Hiroyuki) and asked to teach his skills to the Japanese.
Yip’s firm refusal to Miura is the peak of the strident patriotism on display in Ip Man, making the film the latest in a long line of martial arts pictures of Chinese heroes standing up against foreign aggressors. The filmmakers are keen to weave in diverting threads as well, however, especially early on as Yip balances kung fu with sedate family life, and in his teaching of wing chun to bullied staff at a cotton mill. Where Ip Man stands on more shaky ground is as a reliable biopic, with aspects left unclear when historical detail is glossed over or ignored. Why, for instance, is the factory run by Yip’s mate Zhou (Simon Yam) able to stay in business through the occupation while desperate countrymen resort to hard labor or worse?
Taken as high-profile martial arts entertainment and a loose introduction to its principal historical character, however, Ip Man is one of the more impressive Hong Kong action films of recent years. Key to the movie’s success is Donnie Yen’s toned-down performance, nicely reserved and thus more accessible after the star’s other films with helmer Wilson Yip in recent years. The wing chun moves are direct and never showy, and this makes for an intriguing counterpoint as the hero takes on fierce Northerners and Japanese foes. The tournament template that has made it into many a kung fu film sneaks in with showdowns at the local Japanese headquarters and on a public stage, and the action choreography, lensing and editing present the bouts both legibly and forcefully. Audiences in Hong Kong and China responded well to the onscreen heroics when Ip Man hit cinemas in December 2008, and it’s no surprise, then, that the movie’s backers have already fast-tracked sequels to follow up on Yip’s days in Hong Kong.
Tim Youngs