Review for Ip Man 2

Introduction

This time last year, I was lamenting the dearth of kung fu movies in the UK, the vacuum left by the passing of Hong Kong Legends, and welcoming the arrival of Ip Man, from Cine Asia, who seemed to be venturing into the gap where once HKL thrived. After so long, a new Hong Kong action movie, with lots and lots of kung fu had arrived on UK shores, and I could once again feed a need that I had started to forget I even had. Since then, Cine Asia have teamed up with Dragon Dynasty in the US, and have even hired the services of one Bey Logan to comment on Cine Asia DVDs and Blu-rays. It's like Hong Kong Legends are back, but in High Definition! In addition, companies like Manga Entertainment, MVM, and Revolver have ventured further into live action Eastern Cinema, and they have some choice martial arts titles as well. In fact, for fans of martial arts cinema, it's never been so good in the UK. So, twelve months later, Ip Man 2 arrives for review from Cine Asia, and I'm almost feeling blasé about its arrival. Then I remember that this is Ip Man, the teacher of Bruce Lee, and these films are about as close to pure kung fu action as you're going to get in cinema now, since those long ago days of Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers.


Ip Man 2 catches up with the eponymous Wing Chun master in 1950, after he and his family have fled Japanese occupied mainland China during World War II, and have settled down in Hong Kong to rebuild their lives. Money isn't easy to come by, especially as Ip Man finds it difficult to establish a school of martial arts on an island overflowing with such institutions. Ip Man has to prove that his skills are developed enough to compete against the rival masters. Worse, corruption is rife in the system, with the head of the strongest school, Master Hung, collecting kickbacks as 'protection' money, to grease the wheels of the British authorities so that they don't get too involved in local affairs. When Ip Man isn't willing to pay, that causes no little friction between him and Master Hung. But such concerns have to be put aside when the British bring a boxing championship match to the island, and the arrogant Twister starts throwing his weight around during what was supposed to be a demonstration of kung fu. All eyes turn to Ip Man to defend Chinese honour.

Picture

If last year's Ip Man DVD release had one problem, it was that of an NTSC-PAL standards conversion, coupled with edge enhancement. Thankfully, that isn't an issue at all with Ip Man 2, which as a film with high production values and period detail deserves, gets a proper Film-PAL transfer, clear and sharp throughout, smooth and free of any of those pesky flaws that marred the earlier release. It's even more fitting for this film, as it really goes to town bringing out the period Hong Kong cityscape, the set and costume designs are top notch, and the locations and cinematography, especially during the action sequences, is stunning. Unsurprisingly Sammo Hung returns as action director for this film, and his visual imagination shows. There is the slightest hint of aliasing that comes at the limit of the DVD format, and if I do feel that some of the colours and whites were blown out a little, that was probably a creative choice. Ip Man 2 is released on Blu-ray as well on the same day, if you want the higher definition.

Sound

You have the choice between DD 5.1 and 2.0 Cantonese, with optional English subtitles. There's also a smattering of Mandarin, and poorly acted English. The dialogue is clear throughout, unfortunately so for the English sections. Again, in a nod to continuity, the music again comes from Japanese composer Kenji Kawai, and is suitably evocative of the period and the setting. The action is well served by the 5.1 soundtrack, and there is a whole lot of that to be served.

Extras

For Ip Man 2, the extra features are distributed across both discs, which get the usual Cine Asia treatment when it comes to animated menus.

Disc 1

Here you'll find the Cine Asia trailers, 12 in all, and the most intriguing of which seems to be the CGI laden Woochi: The Demon Slayer, which has what looks like a Samurai Rabbit in it. My Usagi Yojimbo senses are tingling.

Disc 1 is also your first port of call if you want to know everything about everything, featuring as it does one of those delicious Bey Logan commentary tracks. It's mega-loaded with pertinent information about the movie, the actors, the staff, and everything else you may need to know about the Hong Kong film industry. What amazes me is that after all this time, and all these commentaries, Bey Logan always brings something new and interesting to each one. In this, he reveals he was up for the role of the corrupt policeman Wallace. Dodged a bullet there!


The trailer gallery for Ip Man 2 contains the original theatrical, and the Cine Asia trailers, as well as two TV spots, and the trailer for the first film.

The Shooting Gallery is a brief 3-minute, behind the scenes montage.

You can see more of this in the Making Of documentary, which lasts 18 minutes. You'll also find interviews with the cast and the crew as they talk about the film.

Four Big Scenes with Wilson Yip and Kenneth Mak offer brief featurettes that take us behind the scenes of filming. These run to a total of 10 minutes.

There are also 10 minutes worth of deleted scenes, including the boxing match which was the whole point of Twister's presence in Hong Kong, but which was left out of the final cut.

Finally on this disc, there is three minutes of footage from the film's gala premiere.


Disc 2

This disc is loaded with extra features, with over 2 hours of interviews in the Interview Gallery. You can watch featurettes with director Wilson Yip, and stars Sammo Hung, Donnie Yen, Huang Xiao-Ming, Lynn Hung, Simon Yam, Louis Fan, Youe Hong, Kent Chung, Aston Chen, Pierre Ngo, and Darren Shahlavi. Runtimes vary from 4 minutes all the way up to half an hour. The problem I had was that the questions were invariably the same, tell us about the film, tell us about your character, what's it like working with the director, what's it like working with the co-stars… Ask the same questions, and it's no surprise that you get the same answers. It's best not to watch all these interviews in one sitting.


Legacy of the Master is a sit down chat with Wing Chun Instructor Phil Morris that lasts 34 minutes. He learns his Wing Chun from Sifu Hawkins Cheung, who in turn learned from Ip Man himself, and who was a contemporary of Bruce Lee. Phil Morris mentions that his father was Greg Morris of Mission Impossible fame, but is surprisingly self deprecating about his own career. I had a case of 'I know that face' and had to adjourn to IMDB, and it turns out that Phil Morris has a fairly illustrious CV, all the way from the original Star Trek series, where he appeared as a child actor, all the way through Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Voyager as well. He's also the eager young space cadet with the untimely question at the start of Star Trek III. Currently he's more recognisable as Jon Jones in Smallville. Of course what I didn't know of was his devotion to Wing Chun, and here he talks about the history of the martial art, and how it has passed down from Ip Man, through Hawkins Cheung, and to him, and how he's passing it on as well.

The Wing Chun Connection lasts 27 minutes, and adjourns to the Inosanto Academy, where some of the instructors demonstrate the styles and form, and talk about Wing Chun in more detail, as well as going into Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do.

Wing Chun in Action lasts 25 minutes, and Phil Morris returns to demonstrate Wing Chun as applied in a real world setting, and shows that it's just as effective against genuine aggressors as it is as a visual martial arts form in an action movie, if not quite as flamboyant.

Conclusion

Just as in the previous film, it should be made clear that this is less Ip Man the biography, than it is Ip Man the legend, and quite naturally the events and the story depicted within have been massaged considerably for entertainment value. Actually, comparing Ip Man 2 to the first film is appropriate in this instance, as this is one of those sequels that really are remakes of the first film. Once you have a successful formula, a story that works, it really doesn't serve to deviate from it in any significant way, and the structure of Ip Man 2 is practically identical to Ip Man. Of course there are differences in story elements, and in the sequel we have an Ip Man who wants to impart his knowledge of Wing Chun, to become a teacher, rather than the reclusive master of the first film that tried to stay aloof of the squabbling schools in his home town. But as I said the structure is the same, beginning with Ip Man opening his school of Wing Chun, yet trying to stay out of the local politics of the martial arts community in Hong Kong. But once again, he's pulled right into the middle of the trouble, especially against Master Hung. This friction threatens to ignite, but it's the arrival of foreign adversity that causes the Chinese community to unite once more. In Ip Man, it was World War II and the arrival of the Japanese; here it is the British colonial overlords stamping down with their bigoted jackboots that require a kung fu pasting to learn the errors of their ways.


Again, structurally it is identical, in that it's a clash of fighting styles that tests Chinese honour in the face of foreign dominance. Before it was Chinese kung fu versus Japanese bushido, and this time around it is Western style boxing. Once again, one of the kung fu masters is killed as the foreign devils demonstrate their alleged superiority, and once again, it's Ip Man who fights to re-establish Chinese honour. What makes it different is that with the boxing ring the venue of the challenge, the second half of the movie is basically a remake of Rocky IV. The second half of the film is also the weakest part of the film, with some very dubious, single note caricatures for the British characters. That's in contrast to the first film, which at least gave the Japanese some sort of dimension and nuance, with a Japanese general who had a strong core of honour, despite his brutal oversight, and a sympathetic ambassador. In the sequel, the British are all slime, corrupt, bellicose and venal. They're so villainous that even the hardest core Imperialist apologist, still smarting over the loss of the territories, will cheer when they get their just desserts.


In this respect, Ip Man 2 falls short of the first film, but in terms of kung fu action, it exceeds it. This is one of those films where after watching it, you'll begin most conversations about it with, "Do you remember the bit with…?" From the first action scene, where Ip Man recruits his first student, to the final combat against Twister, you're eyes will be smiling at the action sequences in this film, all brilliantly and inventively choreographed and staged. This time, Sammo Hung not only acts as action director, but also co-stars in the film as Master Hung. In SPL he and Donnie Yen had a knockabout action sequence with a lot of brutal mixed martial arts style. In this film, the two have a traditional kung fu battle atop a vast table, two different martial arts styles, very much in the old school martial arts movie mode, albeit with modern cinematography and special effects. Then there is the fight sequence in the fish market, dazzling in its intense fury. I've never really seen Donnie Yen's charisma or screen presence as a straight actor, but as an action movie star, he owns the screen. Put him up against someone just as iconic, like Sammo Hung, and you have pure movie magic.


Ip Man 2 isn't the deepest of stories. It's certainly not what you would expect from the usual biopic, but it is a peach of an action film. The jingoistic ode to national pride is overwrought and laid on thickly, while a subplot featuring the Quan character from the first film doesn't really go anywhere. Still, there is a nod to continuity in the number of characters that carry over between the two films, even though chronology isn't as watertight. Ip Man's son has barely aged in the sequel, even though the two films are set years apart. But when all is said and done, Ip Man 2 is a whole lot of fun, and if the final scene doesn't leave you with a big grin on your face, nothing ever will.