Directed by Wilson Yip
Hong Kong, 2019, 105 minutes
This time around, Ip Man travels to San Francisco to look for a school for his son Ip Ching, a sullen, defiant, disobedient and rebellious young man who would rather learn Wing Chun than go to school. Ip Man meets the martial arts members of the city's Chinese Benevolent Association, led by Tai Chi master Mr. Wan (Wu Yue). The CBA is upset with Ip Man's student Bruce Lee because Lee teaches Chinese martial arts to non-Chinese, a big no-no in their thinking. Wan withholds a letter of recommendation for Ip Man's son to the school that Wan's daughter Yonah (Vanda Margraf) attends because Ip Man refuses to lay down the law to his student.
Further complicating things are the anti-Chinese biases of almost every white American in the film. These include Becky, a fellow student of Yonah, who is bested by her in a cheer-leading tryout, Becky's mother and her father, who just happens to be an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent with considerable clout.
Most ominous however, is the attitude of two Marines at a nearby base: karate instructor Colin Frater (Chris Collins) and his superior, Gunnery Sergeant Barton Geddes (Scott Adkins). They are fanatical devotees of karate and have no respect whatsoever for Chinese martial arts. (This flies in the face of some facts about the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, but this Ip Man series is not particularly big on being accurate where the historical facts are concerned.)
Their attitude would actually seem to be warranted insofar as Frater and Geddes easily overcome every single Chinese martial arts master in brutal encounters. But rest assured, Ip Man, though recently diagnosed with terminal cancer (!) is on hand to defend the honor of Chinese kung fu!
The numerous action scenes are very well done overall, which is to be expected in that Yuen Woo-Ping is again onboard, as he was on Ip Man 3, as Action Director.
Unfortunately, the story line and plot points leave a lot to be desired. So to do the characterizations of the white Americans, who are one-dimensional at best. Even the female head of the school that Ip Man goes to is a money-grubber, willing to forego the required letter of recommendation if he will make a very sizeable donation (read "bribe") to the school. This episode does at least give Donnie Yen a chance to deliver a very funny line in response to a comment by the school's principal.
I noted three things in the movie that did, for the most part, ring true:
-- Bruce Lee did have difficulties with Chinese martial arts leaders in the U.S. because he accepted non-Chinese students.
-- Lee did perform at the 1964 Long Beach International Karate Championships. (Long Beach is a city within the Los Angeles metropolitan area, not San Francisco, but let's call this cinematic poetic license.)
-- Ip Man did die on December 2, 1972 from laryngeal cancer.
But, after all, this is a martial arts themed action movie, not a reality grounded bio-pic drama.
— Audio:
— English HDMA 5.1
— Subtitles:
— English
—Traditional Chinese
— Simplified Chinese
— French
— Off
— The 10-Year Legend
— The Story
— Trailer A
— Trailer B
— U.S. Trailer
— Previews:
—Cut Throat City
— Enter the Fat Drago
— Ne Zha (English Dub)
AsianCineFest Rating: 3 out of 4 stars; a decent enough action flick, if you can ignore, tolerate or perhaps laugh at the fanciful plot and the ridiculously stereotypical portrayal of pretty much all the white Americans.
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