Ip Man series review

I watched Ip Man 3 on New Year's Eve, in a fully packed theatre. I'm a huge fan of the Ip Man series, so I was quite hyped going to watch it. Unfortunately, it didn't really live up to my expectations of the show, though I did enjoy quite a few parts about the movie.

Warning : This blog post may contain spoilers about the main storylines of the Ip Man series... though who watches this series for the plot! Lol. 

One of the hallmarks of the Ip Man series is to portray Ip Man as fighting only when absolutely necessary, and often in desperate life/death times. In addition, Donnie Yen has the remarkable ability of conveying intensity in his eyes while fighting - sometimes it would be a conflicted mix of not wanting to harm the opponent but having to, sometimes it would be just finally having avenged something, often overlaid with released pent up frustration and tension.

Case in point - the final fight of the first movie, against the Japanese general - just look at Ip Man's eyes as he 'spares' the general's life in his final 'fingers out' blow at 2:40! Absolutely remarkable.

Ip Man versus Japanese General

The first Ip Man movie had the backing of a harsh, realistic context of the movie - in the middle of the Sino-Japanese War. Ip Man had to fight literally for survival, to get food, etc. One of the series most iconic lines was uttered in this show, when he took on 10 martial art experts "Gei wo shi ge!" (or directly translated from the Cantonese lines, 'I want to take on 10') for 10 bags of rice.

Ip Man vs 10 Martial Art Experts

Ip Man 2 was, in essence, East vs West, as the likes of Sammo Hung had to defend the integrity of their martial arts against the powerful Western boxer 'Twister'. The movie built up the animosity against Twister so well that in the final fight scene, as Ip Man rains down punch after punch on Twister, you can't help but feel a swelling of pride in your chest and cheer on Ip Man, despite the horrific and brutal beating he was giving out.

The below is the video of that fight, but I strongly urge you to watch the movie itself, as the story/emotional build-up to this fight adds a lot more meaning and significance to how it played out and ended.

Ip Man vs Twister

Another hallmark of the show is its amazing 1 on 1 fights. Yes, every other movie can do those one hero against a dozen people fights. But Ip Man's fight choreography really shines when it pits just Donnie Yen alone, versus another expert. Those are always a huge delight to watch, especially with all its subtleties and nuances conveyed slyly by the director. For instance, they will always show you Ip Man holding back a fatal blow here, a deadly strike there, etc. with a close-up shot.


So what did I think about Ip Man 3?

WARNING Ip Man 3 spoilers ahead!

The show's opening scene playfully hinted at Ip Man's 'don't really want to fight' nature - as he casually avoided all the blows of a young Bruce Lee, eager to be his disciple.

I didn't really like the general storyline, it felt too typical and trivial. Basically, bad angmoh wants land in which Ip Man's son was schooling at, and then hooligans go and cause trouble, Ip Man swoops in as protector, trouble escalates, Ip Man hunts down those people and fight a ton of them at once.

The showrunners tried an interesting approach though, adding in two side stories which would later prove central - Ip Man's rapidly deteriorating wife; and another Wing Chun expert, Tin-chi, eager to start his own brand of Wing Chun. It was quite sad how his wife's storyline evolved - Ip Man is known to be a strong family man, which was exactly what made the entire predicament more tragic. He was trying to protecting his son/son's school - but at the expense of neglecting his wife who was falling ill. It's a difficult moral dilemma here.

I thought Tin-Chi's side story was a little weird though, it made for a strange story arc where the main narrative climaxes, ends, and you think the show would end there, but this side story suddenly blossoms and there's another 30-40 minutes of show left. But I guess the showrunners felt it was necessary to show the iconic Wing Chun vs Wing Chun fight, in the true nature of Ip Man.

Fights-wise : I've never been a big fan of mass fights - it trivialises the complexity of Ip Man's skill and turns it into any other action movie with dummy actors who can't throw a punch to save a life and just comes in to get beaten up by the main character. Ip Man 3 had too many of those for my liking, though I guess it served an integral story purpose (to rescue his son).

There were 2 iconic fights I liked:

1) Ip Man vs Muay Thai dude
Ip Man at its best here. Close combat strikes and grapples, in a very enclosed area. Extremely exciting to watch, very satisfying fight progression and ending. I can't believe I waited 1h for a good fight (I think all the previous fights were mass fights if I recall correctly)

2) Ip Man vs Mike Tyson
Lol, almost all the show's marketing centred around this. It did not disappoint. Mike Tyson was swift and nimble as a boxer, and threw solid, powerful punches that you could feel from your seat as they crashed into the wall / windows. In one of his interviews, Donnie Yen said something like 'When filming with Mike, it was quite stressful - Mike is obviously a powerful boxer, so I had to maintain my focus 100% if not I would get hit. There was one hook he threw, I ducked it, but it was so fast I felt the impact of the blow lifting my hairs up"

I love it when fights get clever, or when Ip Man 'uses his brain' (e.g. how he defeated Twister in Ip Man 2, by attacking certain weak points). He wasn't doing well at first in his all out brawl with Mike Tyson given his brute force and power, so he began to intentionally block with his strongest points - his elbows and knees, slowing Mike down a bit. He also began throwing some specifically placed counter-punches and kicks to hinder Mike.

Did you notice that Ip Man actually 'won' the fight a few times? The show does its trademark 'Ip Man spares his opponent' moments with its quick close-up shots which you may miss if you blinked. I caught one where he his fist/fingers reached Mike Tyson's eye, which he could have easily jammed in, but he just struck the side of his head. Then a second one where his swinging kick found Mike's crotch, but he stopped short and did not complete the blow.
Basically, I think Ip Man recognised that he couldn't 'defeat' Mike Tyson as there may be repercussions for him - he just needed to survive the 3 minutes to win his respect and the wager they had. And the whole fight scene conveyed this so well but subtly.

I also loved the parting line of Mike, with the symbolic use of his daughter(?)'s balloon. 'Sometimes, we just have to let go', referring to the stray balloon but also that he would give up on the school.


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Wait wait, I'm not mentioning the final Wing Chun vs Wing Chun fight? Yes, I didn't really like the use of weapons, I always prefer the bare fist fights. And while the fight choreography was no less exceptional than its previous fights, I didn't feel a satisfying 'progression' of the fight.

The 'ending' of the fight came so abruptly - both fighters seemed relatively even with Ip Man landing some better blows, then Tin-Chi landed the cheapshot in Ip Man's eye, and Ip Man responded with some supersonic sensing and dodges with eyes closed, and ended with a kidney shot of sorts.

I get what the fight director was trying to do in conveying Ip Man 'kind of' winning the fight but still holding back, and deciding to go all out once his opponent played dirty. But I felt the 'winning' part could have been conveyed more strongly, and maybe make the fight climax more boldly. Somehow when Ip Man landed his final blow and walked off, I felt it was slightly anticlimatic.

(For a master example of a 'satisfying progression of a fight', watch that Ip Man vs Twister video above. In fact, I think this fight was one of the best fights of the whole series)

Overall, I didn't really feel the intense 'fire' in Donnie Yen's eyes from the previous shows in this one. In Ip Man 3, he seemed to just give his typical stern, serious solemn look. In previous shows, you can almost sense his cathartic fury when he was in a fight / ended a fight. In this one... not quite.

Oh well. Ip Man was a fun journey, and I will continue to enjoy re-watching the iconic fights on Youtube in future years.