*This review has been produced for CUEAFS and our partners Cine-Vue
The review has been submitted to Cine-Vue; still unpublished
Directed by: Wilson Yip Written by: Edmong Wong Starring: Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung and Simon Yam
Master of the Chinese martial arts and Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen delivers another incredible performance in this sequel to the biopic “Ip Man” from 2008. Wilson Yip returns in the director's chair to continue the story of Ip Man's life from where the previous film ended and tell the story of the martial arts teacher's struggles in a post-war world.
Following his assault on the Japanese Army, Ip Man moves to Hong Kong in 1949. Because of his financial troubles, he tries to open his own martial arts school, only to encounter more problems along the way. After competing with the other masters to 'deserve' his right to teach kung fu, Ip Man comes face to face with the foreign culture of the British, who have no respect for anything that martial arts teach. Integrating loosely the story of Ip Man's relationship with his first Hong Kong pupil, Leung Sheung, or even arguably with Bruce Lee, the film's plot is a little too similar to the original, where Ip Man's patriotism against the invading Japanese is replaced by a not-subtle-enough nationalism against the foreign culture of the West.
Beyond the surface, however, “Ip Man 2” tells a deeper story that is left painfully unexplored. The story about human relationships and the goodness of a man towards others, despite his own struggles, and the biggest enemy of all – poverty, takes a back seat to the nationalistic resistance against the Western culture in the second half and leaves the audience with a shallow story with much more to be desired. Huang Xiaoming delivers a nice youthful warmth to the film and allows for Ip Man's character to be represented more deeply through his personal relationship with his disciple. However, this relationship and Ip Man's relationship with his family and his rivals could have been explored in much more depth, as the supporting cast and returning characters remain awkwardly one-layered and underused and don't deliver any real substance to the story.
Sammo Hung returns as action director and does a good job in the fighting scenes, although their unrealistic quality takes away from the experience of the original. It is also pleasing to see Hung occupy one of the rival masters' roles, delivering a great performance in the most memorable fighting scene from the film, which is an impressive demonstration of the different kung fu styles in Hong Kong. Another highlight of the sequel is the original soundtrack by Japanese composer Kenji Kawai (“Death Note”, “Ghost in the Shell”) which paints a painful picture of Hong Kong reality during the 50s and represents perfectly the struggles of a man to build life for himself and his family.
It is not exactly clear when the film turns into a parody of a kung fu film filled with stereotypes and bad acting, especially on the part of the British actors, but there is a painfully obvious transition between the first and second half. The strongly infiltrated nationalism makes Yen's character seem completely out of place and it disrupts the image of Ip Man with his dignity and humility and turns him into a 'magical' kung fu hero who can fight off twenty men armed with swords but not an English boxer. His character becomes tragically comic during his final speech which is badly scripted and it serves as an unnecessary lesson that is supposed to create peace where there was no war to begin with.
No match for the first film, “Ip Man 2” still manages to entertain, as it is easy to enjoy Donnie Yen's incredible representation of Ip Man's self-control, dignity and humility, as well as his martial arts skills. However, the badly scripted and acted second half and the awkward presence of the dozen sidekick characters that could have been better utilised, turn the film into a bad remake of the first, rather than a sequel, and deliver no depth to the story, but overused and worn-out stereotypes and misplaced nationalism.
