Film: Ip Man
Release date: 26th October 2009
Certificate: 15
Running time: 106 mins
Director: Wilson Yip
Starring: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Fan Siu-wong, Xiong Dailin
Genre: Martial Arts/History/Action/Drama
Studio: Cine Asia/Showbox
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
Donnie Yen takes on the role of the man Bruce Lee called “Master”, in an ‘event’ martial arts movie the like of which Hong Kong cinema has not produced in some time. With Yen reuniting with Wilson Yip, will this continue their run of good form after the successes of Kill Zone and Flashpoint?
Ip Man tells the story of its eponymous hero, a 20th century martial arts expert who lived and taught first in Foshan, China, before moving to Hong Kong in 1949. The film chronicles his life up until his departure from China.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the righteous Wing Chun master struggles to survive while staying true to his principles of honour, righteousness and loyalty. Largely eschewing taking students, Ip is forced to reconsider as the might of the Japanese grows ever more impressive, and he realises that it sometimes takes more than local folk legend to inspire people…
Hong Kong cinema has, for the best part of a century, made good use of Chinese folk heroes. The most famous is Wong Fei-hung, often referred to as a ‘Chinese Robin Hood’. Over one hundred different movies centre around the, usually heavily fictionalised exploits of the 19th century figure, and the illustrious list of actors to have played him includes such notable names as Kwan Tak-hing, Gordon Liu, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. An extension of martial arts oral history - itself ripe for embellishment and reinvention necessary for cinematic effect - Hong Kong fight films have made similar good use of other such figures as Leung Jan (a 19th century Wing Chun master played by Yuen Biao in The Prodigal Son), ‘Butcher’ Lam Sai-wing (a disciple of Wong Fei-hung memorably portrayed by Sammo Hung in The Magnificent Butcher), and Huo Yuan-jia (whose real-life mysterious death prompted the cinematic vengeance of fictional student Chen Zhen, who has been portrayed on film by Bruce Lee and Jet Li, and on television by Donnie Yen).
Ip Man is perhaps the last of these folk-heroic figures fit for lionisation by Hong Kong cinema, his prime years being just ‘historical’ enough for the filmmakers to take biographical liberties in the name of romanticising the legend, while his proficiency in a fighting style that is infinitely more practical than the flowery, enhanced methods usually depicted in Hong Kong fight movies gives him an appealing contemporary relevance.
Perhaps most notable about Ip Man, the real person, is his association with Bruce Lee, who he took in as an eager teenage martial arts prodigy. Despite the fact that he assigned his day-to-day tuition to one of his senior instructors, rarely does an account of Bruce Lee’s life not include at least one reference to Ip Man (or Yip Man, as he was more commonly referred to until the release of the movie), and the film certainly traded on this in its marketing campaign. As the first major motion picture on this 20th century martial arts master, this big budget and occasionally sumptuous production heralds a mini-avalanche of Ip Man-themed biopics. Ip Man 2 has already been released in Hong Kong, and no less a name than Wong Kar-wai is currently producing a film provisionally titled ‘The Grandmaster’, in which the role of Master Ip will be essayed by none other than Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
It may be that audiences have to wait some time for an authentic depiction of Ip Man the character, Ip Man the life lived, for Wilson Yip’s effort is a distinctly whitewashed affair, playing fast and loose with the subject’s biography. Almost none of the depicted events actually occurred, the film glosses over certain details, such as his opium addiction and membership of the Kuomintang political party - its fierce opposition to the victorious Communists being the real reason Master Ip left China for Hong Kong in 1949.
That said, the film is notable for injecting the folk hero with the odd dash of fallibility, even if this mostly centres around his early favouring of martial arts over his role as husband and father. While a little ham-fisted, moments such as Ip Man ushering away the infant son who just wants to show him his new drawing in order to continue an impromptu training session are some of the more effective dramatic beats, wholly unexpected in an otherwise sanitised biopic.
20th century Hong Kong martial arts cinema was dominated mostly by Wong Fei-hung, and it could well be that the 21st is ruled by Ip Man. But if Hong Kong filmmakers are finding new heroes for their martial arts movies, the same cannot be said of their storytelling and politics. Ip Man, the film, is punctuated with the same sort of almost-uncomfortable nationalism that might alienate foreign audiences. Particularly of note is its depiction of the Japanese, which suggests that local audiences are as keen to see the old Japanese enemy given a cinematic pasting now as they were back in 1972 when Bruce Lee sent a cinema into raptures by telling Japanese baddies that his people were “not sick men.” The rushed-into-production Ip Man 2 is further indicative of this and, without ignoring the suffering of Chinese people during Japanese occupation, one is moved to ponder exactly when Hong Kong filmmakers might stop leaning on this storytelling crutch.
Yip, as a director, brings no personal touch or style to offset this unfortunate jingoism. The second half of the film, set after the Japanese take control of the country, is shot in distinctly saturated colours that give the film an effective look to mirror the characters’ misery, but is simply too obvious a device to truly drive home the awfulness of the Chinese predicament under Japanese rule. Like with his previous Donnie Yen star vehicle, Flashpoint, there is occasionally the sense that there is a unique director contained within the parameters and requirements of a straightforward action film; the odd offbeat quirk - such as Ip Man’s son riding a tricycle through a fight scene to relay a message from ‘Mama’ that ‘Baba’ should start fighting back before everything in the house is shattered - standing out from the otherwise tried-and-trusted scenes and sequences.
But it is an indication of his mostly hands-off, impersonal approach that a viewer is never sure if his directorial choices are always intentional. Consider a sequence in the first fifteen minutes of the film, when a disgruntled martial arts master storms into a restaurant to seek the young urchin who has besmirched his reputation. The ‘blocking’ of this scene - a wide shot, with principal characters in the foreground and extras lined up to fill out the frame behind them - is extremely reminiscent of the directorial style prevalent in Hong Kong films as far back as Bruce Lee’s era, very ‘stage-y’ and with a clear debt to Peking and Cantonese Opera theatrical traditions. Yip shows such technical proficiency in other areas - his editing and montages being generally effective - that it is reasonable to suspect this curious visual is a tribute to the Hong Kong martial arts genre history, which Ip Man continues, but this is undermined by the extremely straightforward script - as earnest a story as you will find, and completely lacking in irony or self-referential commentary.
But where Yip does have success is in the performance of his leading man. Free of the almost narcissistic posturing that characterised his turns in films like Kill Zone, Flashpoint and, especially, Dragon Tiger Gate, Donnie Yen delivers a measured and subdued performance that is completely unexpected. While the non-fighting scenes may not give him much to work with, Yen brings genuine grace and gravitas to a role that would initially seem ill-suited to him. It is a testament to his performance that it is hard to imagine anyone else in the part and, regardless of whether there are better Ip Man films to come, Yen seems destined to become and remain synonymous with the character.
As pleasing as his general performance is, perhaps most impressive is Yen’s command of the Wing Chun fighting style. Having made great strides in incorporating ultra-modern MMA techniques into his recent work, Yen reminds us of his preternatural versatility and athleticism, seeming every inch the Wing Chun master (he reportedly spent nine months in training for the role). Action director Sammo Hung is no stranger to Wing Chun on film, nor Chinese folk heroes - he explored both in the films Warriors Two and The Prodigal Son - but his presentation of the style in this film is on another level to those earlier efforts, his choreography making this most practical and efficient of martial arts cinematically appealing whilst retaining admirable authenticity. Yuen Wo-ping may be Hollywood’s favourite fight director, and Ching Siu-tung the ‘go-to guy’ for operatic wuxia, but Ip Man is a timely reaffirmation of Hung’s place in the annals of Hong Kong film history. The big man definitely still has it.
Something of a missed opportunity. Ip Man is a lush production, with some truly wonderful fight sequences, but it’s a shame that the scriptwriters did not execute their job with the same level of care and meticulousness that Donnie Yen put into what will surely be a career-defining performance. JN
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