Film: The Legend Is Born: Ip Man
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 100 mins
Director: Herman Yau
Starring: Sammo Hung, Yu-Hang To, Dennis To, Siu-Wong Fan, Yi Huang
Genre: Action/Biography/Drama/Martial Arts
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
The Japanese are coming - and they want to steal your kung fu! China's only hope is a legend in the making in this semi-autobiographical account of the originator of Wing Chun, mentor to Bruce Lee, and all-round tough guy, Ip Man.
Set throughout the early 20th century, Ip Man focuses on the life of our eponymous hero as he grows from a promising student into the heir apparent at a school for martial arts. Along the way, he ably demonstrates his considerable skill in numerous conflicts, which end poorly for everyone involved - but him.
The story begins with Ip Man and his adopted Japanese brother Tin Chi being enrolled into the school by their father who immediately takes off and leaves them under the supervision of an old Wing Chun master - a master who promptly dies and makes way for the slightly younger Cheung Wing Shing (Huang Yi).
It rapidly becomes clear that with Japanese incursions into Chinese culture becoming more and more common, the leaders of the association which determines who may be taught Wing Chun must decide whether to accept the approaches of the shady Kitano. With Tin Chi and Ip Man potentially caught on opposite sides of the conflict, both men must come to terms with not only external threats to their order but also the possibility of internal changes that threaten to undermine that which they have been taught since childhood…
Right off the bat, it's important to reiterate that Ip Man is semi-autobiographical. This is important because often enough such films live or die by how well they retell the protagonist's story – oscillating between mind-blowingly amazing and bombastically stupid (see: anything biographical that Mel Gibson has ever done). One of Ip Man's greatest flaws is that it seems too embarrassed to dramatise any of its heroes exploits, but will happily use piece-meal wire fighting in order to establish some kind of dynamic. This leads to the story of an obviously incredible man being told in an incredibly mundane fashion, with moments of incredibly misplaced fantasy simply confusing matters.
From the start, Ip Man delivers an inconsistent message, and this is only compounded by the frequent leaps that are made from scene to scene. Often characters make assertions that either assumes the watcher knows something that has not been explained, or explains something that bears no relevance to the rest of the film. Never is this more evident than when Ip Man (Dennis To) goes to find some medicine for a man who he had fought and hurt, at which point he describes his victim as a 'friend'. Problem being that he had not met the man before and never mentioned him again, so in the end all this (undoubtedly factual) encounter served to do was highlight the ham-fisted segway the film had made into a section where the protagonist learns a new and revolutionary form of Wing Chun; something which remains a key concept for about twenty minutes before also being forgotten.
Indeed, if Ip Man, as a whole, is a forgetful film then the directing, writing, editing, acting and even fight choreography could charitably be described as absent-minded. Most of the cast seem to have left their commitment at home for this picture, and it really shows as scene after scene begins to be dominated by poor directorial choices, worse acting, and fight scenes that make no contextual sense and are – at best – uninspiring. The worst thing about this is twofold: firstly that this is a martial arts film, and it shouldn't take a genius to work out that boring fight scenes might be problematic for a film of that genre; and secondly that being semi-autobiographical means that some of these fights actually happened, and actually made sense at some point, yet somehow director Wilson Yip managed to shift them into the realm of nonsensical make-believe.
Ultimately what proves to be the most disappointing thing about Ip Man is the sense of wasted potential; wasted ideas, wasted talent and – most importantly – the waste of a great story in what can only be described as a bad film. Poor acting, bizarre editorial and directorial choices, a hokey script, and fight scenes that rarely break a figurative sweat make Ip Man, above all else, a waste of an hour-and-a-half. JD
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