Ip Man 4: The Finale

“Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy,” which came out in 2018, was a nicely made surprise (the Michelle Yeoh cameo really helped) in a great franchise that was nevertheless working on diminishing returns. Pat Padua said in his review, “Ip Man 4: The Finale shares some of its predecessor’s impressive production values, constructing big period sets that suggest a martial arts version of Francis Ford Coppola’s One from the Heart. Unfortunately, while the surrounding melodrama is stronger and more timely than usual, the fight scenes send out franchise star Donnie Yen on a relatively lackluster note.”

The famous Yuen Woo-Ping, who directed “Master Z,” is back as fight coordinator here but passes the job back to Wilson Yip, who worked every installment in the main series. The fourth film, released in 2019, sets up a new generation. Set in the 1960s around the time Ip Man’s actual student Bruce Lee (Kwok-Kwan Chan) was becoming famous in America, the film is mainly set in San Francisco, where Ip Man hopes to send his disturbed son Ching (Jim Liu) to school.

However, Ip Man has to get past the Chinese Benevolent Association, whose boss, Wan Zong-hua, played by Wu Yue, refuses to give Ip Man the recommendation letter needed to Chinese immigrants to attend school in America. The problem: Wan and his coworkers arent’ happy that Ip Man’s former student Bruce Lee wants to teach Chinese martial arts to Americans. Padua compared, “Wan is sort of the equivalent of the Sammo Hung figure in Ip Man 2; naturally, the adversaries end up uniting forces to fight a common enemy.”

This brings us to another problem. That common enemy is, you guessed it, American racism, which hurts Wan’s daughter Yonah, played by Vanda Margraf, at school. The anti-Chinese issue is also occurring in the army. US Marines staff sergeant Hartman Wu (Vanness Wu) wants his fellow Marines to learn Wing Chun, but gunnery sergeant Chun Barton Geddes (Scott Adkins) refuses, insisting that karate (invented by the Japanese) is the superior martial arts.

Padua said, “The period detail may be completely fictional, but the art direction and sweeping camerawork makes for a romantic and convincing simulacrum of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1960s. The conflict between ugly Americans and Chinese immigrants is played a bit cartoonishly, but Yen as always is there to ground the action in something like a recognizable human character. With his modest frame and gentle demeanor, Yen comes off like a kung fu Jimmy Stewart, fighting for the oppressed wherever he goes, and there’s a certain thrill from seeing him stand up for Yonah when she’s bullied by her school’s star cheerleader and her hockey stick wielding friends.”

Yen may be getting a little old for the amazing fights of the earlier “Ip Man” movies, which fits the character at this stage in his life: we see that at the beginning of the film, this older Ip Man is diagnosed with cancer that will kill him, so his martial arts are of a smart elder who, even more than usual, doesn’t believe in any wasted movement. However, after fighting Mike Tyson in “Ip Man 3,” the villain here isn’t as brilliant. Obviously, there’s agreement when Ip Man does end up beating the racist gunnery sergeant, but somehow the stakes don’t seem as high. Padua mentioned, “The Ip Man series has been a study in the tensions between kung fu tropes and melodrama; it’s like each film has an inner battle between the gritty underdog story of Rocky and the slick comic book jingoism of Rocky IV.” For “Ip Man 4: The Finale,” the Chinese win again, but at the cost of a fluency that is somewhat weakens the underdog narrative.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a great end to the franchise and you should see it. I think it was appropriate to end it off this way, especially since cancer is what killed off the actual Ip Man. So if you want to see one more Ip Man movie, than you should because you will love it, especially if you loved the previous movies.

This brings us to the end of “Ip Man Month,” which I hope everyone has enjoyed my reviews of this franchise. If you have seen the movies, great, and if not, then you should. Stay tuned next month when, wait a minute, next month is October. You know what that means….HALLOWEEN MONTH! Stay tuned for that because I will be finally reviewing a franchise that I have wanted to review ever since I started this marathon.

Ip Man 3

Try the stoic actor’s face looking like a mix between love and loss.

Christian Toto said in his review, “The third film in the quasi-biographical franchise doesn’t disappoint on the action front. It dazzles, plain and simple, even with a new fight choreographer (“Kill Bill’s” Yuen Woo-Ping) calling the shots.”

What starts as a classical action film gets emotionally changed so dramatic it almost makes you forget the greatest stunt work in recent years.

Donnie Yen reprises his role as Ip Man, the Wing Chun grandmaster known for his flawless fighting technique. This time, he has to defend his son’s (Yanshi Wang) school, which is being eyed at by a shady property developer (Patrick Tam).

Have you heard of any other type of real estate worker in movies today?

This will have Ip Man use all of his skills to fight against the gang of crooks attacking the school. I also should mention who is the one who is telling the developer the roar: Former boxer Iron Mike Tyson.

That’s not the entire plot of the movie. A subplot has Ip Man’s wife diagnosed with cancer through a lot of the movie. On top of that, there is jealously from a fellow Wing Chun fighter, played by Max Zhang.

“Ip Man 3,” released in 2015, awkwardly brings everything together, often staying true to the genre this film belongs in. So much fighting and waiting until the boring exposition is done.

Toto mentioned, “It doesn’t help that Tyson is best served in micro-cameos like his “Hangover” franchise chores. He’s given a few lines here, both in English and Cantonese, and gets KO’d by each. He’s still a hulking presence, so the inevitable battle between his character and Ip Man is almost worth the stunt casting.”

The real Ip Man taught Bruce Lee, and Danny Chan plays the martial artist as a dance instructor, which is weird.

This brings everyone to a moment where it shows Donnie Yen being more than an action actor. Toto said, “The sequence is tender and true, a summation of love that’s more beautiful than most rom-com finales.”

However, I should also mention the kinetic fight scenes where Ip Man takes on a criminal in a congested elevator early in the movie. The fighting does eventually go into the building, but the fast pace only increases with more room to fight.

Of course, there’s a great fight in a warehouse, where Tyson’s pawns attack Ip Man in classic, one-on-one fighting. Of course, no genre is perfect.

Director Wilson Yip doesn’t use shaky cams or really fast edits. Toto noted, “He trusts the chaos enveloping his stars. He employs sly camera angles and wide shots to make sure we see every fist and foot.”

Toto continued, “Tyson’s battle sequence is a hoot, if only for the physical contrast between the combatants. It’s like watching Freddy vs. Jason, a grudge match that works because the two weren’t meant to share the same stage together.”

Toto went on, “Yen’s Ip Man is a throwback in more ways than one. The story is set in the late 1959s, which lends the film an old-fashioned sheen. It’s the character’s selfless spirit that permeates the production. He’s violently humble and kind, a reluctant warrior happiest when he can praise anyone but himself.”

This will make people want more real-life Ip Mans both in pop culture and reality.

I guess this film isn’t as good as the first two, but I still think it’s a good one to check out, for those who are fans of the franchise. You will absolutely love this, especially with the emotional moments in this film. Check it out and enjoy the film with more at stake.

Look out next week when I wrap up “Ip Man month” with the last film in the franchise.

Ip Man 2

Compared to the first movie, which was a biographical movie on the Wing Chun martial artist who tutored Bruce Lee, Wilson Yip’s more generously made sequel, “Ip Man 2,” released in 2011, is a lot of hits and misses.

Maggie Lee said in her review, “As martial arts choreography goes, one-on-one combat couldn’t get much better than the sheer moxie and prowess displayed by Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung (who co-stars and directs action).”

Lee continued, “However, those used to Yip’s black humor and his genre-bending quirks maybe slightly disappointed with the conventional screenplay, which milks people’s nostalgia for ‘70s kung-fu craze without taking the dramatic arc into newer directions. The nationalistic tone, tangled up with a dated underdog sentiment, is even more strident than the previous edition.”

In “Ip Man 2,” it changes from the Japanese-dominated Foshan in China to British-ruled Hong Kong. The first movie made Ip Man as a lenient, modest martial-arts teacher who always does resisting insults to fight, so the sequel is about him becoming a martial arts master.

After winning against the Japanese commander Miura in a public match, Ip Man and his family are really poor living in Hong Kong. He creates a school for Wing Chun on a rooftop, and takes on a group of working class young boys led by cocky but talented Wong Leung, played by Wang Xiaoming. However, Ip Man finds out that martial arts in Hong Kong is caught up in politics and corruption.

In order for him to be given permission to teach, he goes up against a more famous teacher Hong Chun-nam (Sammo Hung) and also has to fight in the boxing ring against Twister (Darren Shahlavi), a British champion who is supported by police supervisor Wallace (Charlie Mayer) to defend the dominance of white men.

Lee mentioned, “The dinner table has always appeared in Yip’s films as the locus of dramatic tension or character-revelation, as seen in Ip Man, Bullets over Summer and Juliet in Love. Here, he takes this auteurist touch to new heights by staging a duel between Ip and Hong in a restaurant, on top of a wobbly round table. Technically, every move is devised and shot with consummate skill. Its entertainment value easily trumps the climactic boxing match, where brute force and hard punches rule.”

Not only that, there’s also a part at the dinner table of very different emotion – when Ip Man is with Hong for a family dinner, giving the teacher a chance to show his soft, fatherly side of the student and how many people he must support.

We can see that Yen is at the height of his acting career. Lee said, “His prowess is staggering, but it is even more pleasurable to see his improving acting chops and the more sympathetic interplay between him and Hung than their previous appearance in Yip’s SPL.”

Supporting roles all have the feeling and humanity that Ip Man had shown in the first movie. However, none of them has the same sort of feeling that we see in the original. Lee said, “Shahlaviand Mayer compete in ham acting to be Most Obnoxious Racist Colonialist in the kung-fu canon, but one can hardly tell them apart – so alike are their growls and grimaces.”

Lee ended her review by saying, “From lingering close-ups of paraphernalia, like Ip’s ashtrays and his wife’s (Lynn Hsiong) biscuit-tin-cum-piggy-bank, ‘50s shop signs and posters, the meticulous art direction and tastefully saturated image colors provide a trip down memory lane for Hong Kong moviegoers.”

If you loved the first movie, you should definitely see this one. You will absolutely like it and fall in love with the franchise even more. Sure, the whole franchise is built around a pro-China vibe, but I think that’s normal in different countries movie industries. However, just see it for great acting, great story, and great fighting.

Look out next week for the next installment in “Ip Man Month.”

Mulan (2020)

Last night, I checked out the “Mulan” remake, which is released on Disney+ and you have to watch it buy paying a premium fee, so I think I’ll let everyone know what I thought about it.

Even though this is a strong lead, the remake suffers from bad pacing, boring characters, and VFX problems that doesn’t make it anywhere as good as the superior 1998 original animated film.

Directed by Niki Caro, “Mulan” has a wide Asian cast. From the start of production on the remake, the movie was supposed to borrow from the legend of the character than how the 1998 original told the story.

The remake is targeted to the young woman audience that is supposed to be very familiar with. The basic story of “Mulan” has been the same since the original Ballad of Mulan Chinese poem: the young woman who disguises herself as a man to replay her old and handicapped father. The 2020 remake starts off the same, telling the Emperor of China’s (Jet Li) order that one man per family must enlist in the Imperial Army. Taking her father’s (Tzi Ma) sword and armor, Mulan goes off into the unknown and sees herself while saving her country. On this simple level, “Mulan” is the exact same film as the original animated film, but it separates itself a lot from here.

Niki Caro’s “Mulan” takes a lot from the original folktales and not from the animated film, but it also introduces new characters and elements. Many characters that are in the animated film were either written out, replaced, or broken into separate characters. Maybe the largest deletion of the film is not having Mushu, the comedic relief of the animated film. Fans of the original will miss the character, who brought a lot of light to the story and have Mulan a great person to think ideas back and forth.

Even though Yifei Liu plays Mulan well, it feels like she did not have a lot of lines in this film. Sheraz Farooqi said in his review, “Of course, the nature of the plot, as Mulan is under the cover of a man’s appearance leads her to be quiet for most of the film, it would have been nice to have her speak more often. The omission of Mushu once again plays into this as Mulan is alone throughout most of the film.” The second deletion fans will miss are the songs. Farooqi said, “While some notes and instrumental versions of the original songs find their way into the remake, the lack of ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You” was definitely felt.” The character who sang that song, Li Shang, was broken into two characters, Commander Tung (Donnie Yen) and Honghui (Yoson An). Farooqi noted, “While the reasoning behind it made sense, unfortunately, the film itself did not serve either character well. Both felt very one-dimensional versions of a three-dimensional character in the original.”

Other than that, the villains were also poor in the remake compared to the animated film. Now I know that Shan Yu, the villain in the original animated version, will never be ranked amongst some of the best Disney villains at the time, but the two villains in the live action remake, Xian Lang (Gong Li) and Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) were not in any way better. Farooqi mentioned, “Each felt very one-note and character development for one them happened in a blinding second, to the point where their arc’s conclusion came off as puzzling, yet predictable. While the actors who played them did well with what they had, better writing and extra breathing room could have gone a long way.”

Farooqi continued, “On the topic of pacing and breathing room, something about 2020’s Mulan felt off. The film moved from scene to scene at a lightning pace, character development for the side characters happened in a more cartoony way than the cartoon itself and things felt disjointed in the plot in the third act. One could imagine there is a longer cut of Mulan that would have let the film breathe, specifically in the final half of the film.”

All these flaws aside, “Mulan” is still enjoyable. The film does by a good cast, specifically, it’s lead Liu. The production design of the film was nice and the choreography was well done too. Technically speaking, the film’s visuals are beautiful and it has a nice soundtrack. Farooqi said, “When comparing it to the recent Disney live-action releases, the film does not really reach the pulp feel of Aladdin or the 1:1 remake of The Lion King.” Even though I do applaud “Mulan” for being different from the original animated movie, I think it could have depended on the original a little more, like with the comic relief characters like Mushu, or have the iconic songs in the film.

In the end, “Mulan” is another one of the better live-action remakes that Disney has done. Even though the pacing and some pointless characters really detract from the strong acting performances, the film does get credit for being a more serious look at the Mulan story.

As I mentioned before, even though I like the beautiful visuals and look of the film, and the fight choreography was enjoyable, and cast and performances were nice, it really lacks with having a little forced humor that causes a slight chuckle and not having any of the iconic songs from the original. Also, I really don't think the runtime of the movie really needed to be close to two hours. For a film that was originally supposed to have a theatrical release, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it only got released in theaters in countries that don’t have Disney+ and others where subscribers had to pay Disney+ a premium fee to buy, I think I will let you decide if you want to watch it. I don’t think it was worth having a premium fee to watch the film and even though it is decent and one of the better live-action remakes, I don’t see myself re-watching this after a first viewing. Like I said, it’s a decent, ok film, but I would prefer to watch the original animated film like always. However, it’s not nearly as bad as some of the others, like “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King,” so I give it credit there.

Thank you for joining in on my review tonight. I’ll see you next Friday for the next installment in “Ip Man Month.”

Ip Man

For this whole month, I will be reviewing a franchise that I watched while working out, the “Ip Man Franchise.” Let’s get started with the first “Ip Man” movie, released in 2008.

Rich Cline started his review by saying, “A terrific true story, clearly elevated to mythical proportions, this film benefits hugely from the lucid fight direction by the master Sammo Hung, which gives the film a remarkable resonance by letting us see the characters' personalities in their every move.”

In 1930s regional China, Ip, played by Donnie Yen, is a very loner Wing Chun master who doesn’t want to open a school or prove how good he is. With basically no aggression, he easily wins every fight, so the town knows he’s the real master. One of the town thugs, played by Fan Siu-wong, finds this out the hard way. Ip stays quietly devoted to his wife (Lynn Hung) and son (Li Chak), but after Japan invades China, things get very difficult. This escalates when Ip stands up to both the returning thug and the Japanese general (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi).

As you can see, Ip is a well-respected man in China and, for just the sake of an inspiration, he deserves that right. Cline notes, “Yes, the filmmakers show perhaps too much reverence for him, implying that he singlehandedly defeated the invading Japanese army as they build to a Rocky-style finale and a coda that mentions how Ip taught Bruce Lee everything he knew. But it also has to be said that they state their case effectively, portraying Ip as a steely, calm genius who always deflected attention away from himself and only reluctantly became a hero.”

Yen is perfect in the role, giving the fight scenes a surprising look. Cline mentioned, “The battle choreography is fiendishly clever, and Yen stays utterly cool and focused, building in wry humour and emotional undercurrents along the way.” Ip’s formal pride is maybe his only downside, but it’s still great to see him humiliate his opponents and motivate everyone to stand up for themselves, most likably the workers in a factory owned by his lifelong friend Quan, played by Simon Yam.

Cline said, “And the filmmakers aren't afraid to get dark and tough, showing the raw brutality of war and conflict with only a bit of movie manipulation in characters who are courageous, weak or villainous. By the time we reach the climactic face-off (or three), things have become truly brutal and nasty.” It may be a little exaggerated, and also really straightforward in its storytelling, but it’s a really inspirational film.

If you haven’t seen this movie and like the type of martial arts movies where it looks real and you feel the impact when people hit one another, then you should see this movie. It should still be streaming on NetFlix, so you should see it if you have an account. You will really get into the story and action and you will absolutely love it.

Look out next week when we look at the sequel in “Ip Man Month.”

The Irishman

Today I finished watching “The Irishman,” which was released in theaters and on NetFlix in 2019, so I thought of letting everyone know what I thought about it. Bear in mind, I watched this movie while working out, so that’s why it took a while.

Martin Scorsese has made so many amazing crime movies that you would be forgiven for thinking if he could even make another one. Justin Chang said in his review, “The great surprise of his haunting and elegiac new movie, The Irishman, is that it doesn’t play like a retread so much as a reckoning.”

Scorsese reunites with the stars of “Goodfellas,” Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, but even though his earlier mob movies had such amazing energy, “The Irishman” is filled with loss. It feels older, wiser and considerably sadder. Chang noted, “There are still wisecracks and double-crosses and whackings aplenty, but there’s no kicky thrill to the violence this time — just a harsh aftertaste of emptiness and futility.”

Since the movie goes through so many decades and the runtime is 3½ hours, that’s admittedly a lot of pointlessness. However, “The Irishman” is a highly involving joyride. Chang mentioned, “ts measured pace is entirely gripping, and its gorgeous images are well worth seeing in a theater if you live near one of the few venues where it’s playing (before it hits Netflix on Nov. 27). On a big screen, you might notice some of the minor imperfections of the “digital de-aging” technology that Scorsese uses to make the actors look younger in different time frames, but you stop noticing them after a few moments as the illusion takes hold.”

De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, the Irishman of the film, and it is mainly about his and crimes. Before he passed away from cancer in 2003, Sheeran admitted to killing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, who was reported mysteriously missing in 1975. One of his former attorneys, Charles Brandt, said that claim in his biography of Sheeran, I Heard You Paint Houses, which is basically the blueprint for Steven Zaillian’s screenplay.

However, Sheeran, narrating his story from a retirement home when he is 82, has a lot to tell the audience before he gets to that point. He starts off in the 1940s, when he was a Pennsylvania truck driver who had gotten in with local Mafioso Russell Bufalino, amazingly played by Pesci who comes out of retirement to act in this film.

Chang said, “Sheeran becomes Bufalino’s most reliable hit man: Desensitized to violence by his World War II military service, he kills efficiently and doesn’t ask too many questions.” He’s so good at his job that Bufalino eventually has Sheeran schedule a phone conversation with Hoffa, played by Al Pacino.

Chang noted, “Before long, Sheeran is handling Hoffa’s dirty work as well, and in their bond, we see the insidious ties between unionized labor and organized crime. The Irishman compresses a lot of tumultuous history: There are reenactments of famous mob killings, drive-by references to events such as the Bay of Pigs invasion, and even a brief nod to the conspiracy theory that the mob ordered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”

However, for every one of the movie’s historical show and its amazing supporting cast with actors like Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale and Harvey Keitel, it’s the three main actors that make the movie so engaging. Chang said, “Scorsese is fascinated by the codes of loyalty that bind Sheeran, Bufalino and Hoffa — and also by the petty rivalries and power struggles that threaten to destroy them.”

De Niro, Pesci and Pacino are really bring their all, partly because they aren’t just redoing the famous gangster characters they’ve played before. Pesci makes Bufalino quiet and calculating – the complete opposite of the easily mad goodfella character that won him an Oscar.

Chang credited, “Pacino gets to go big and boisterous without tilting into bombast.” He puts a large amount of love into the role of Hoffa, a man of nice pleasures – he loves ice cream more than anything – and old-school habits, like when he really gets on someone for showing up late to a meeting.

As for De Niro, he has a quietly chilling and finally twisting performance as a man who obediently is influenced into criminal acts. Chang noted, “The last third of The Irishman slows to a riveting crawl as it reconstructs what may or may not have happened in Hoffa’s final hours.” Scorsese takes out the tension to a high level. He wants us to really absorb the horror and weight of what it means to kill somebody.

Chang admitted, “I haven’t yet mentioned Sheeran’s wives and children, which is fitting, since he mostly treats them as afterthoughts. Scorsese doesn’t make the same mistake.” Sheeran’s daughter Peggy, played at different ages by Lucy Gallina and Anna Paquin, becomes the main daughter they focus on. Peggy doesn’t say much, but her silence speaks for itself through the movie’s entire male dominance. With every sarcastic look, she gives a harsh judgment of her father and the terrible, evil world where he is living in.

Like I had mentioned before, this movie is 3½ hours long, so that’s why I watched it while exercising. I can’t watch a movie that long in one sitting, so that’s why it was good to watch while I exercise. However, it’s one of those long movies that is engaging throughout. You should see this movie if you’re a fan of the three lead actors and of the director. It feels really nostalgic to see them collaborate on another film after so many years, especially when it’s about a real event.

Thank you for joining in on today’s review, stay tuned tomorrow to see what I will review this month.