Since its release last year, the immensely successful Ip Man (葉問) has elevated its eponymous grandmaster of the wing chun (詠春) martial arts school to an icon of Chinese kung fu and propelled action star Donnie Yen (甄子丹) to superstardom.
The highly anticipated sequel, Ip Man 2 (葉問2), closely follows the format that made its predecessor a blockbuster hit. But this time the Chinese hero-versus-foreign invaders narrative is fleshed out without wire fu or CGI-enhanced martial arts moves.
Yen is joined by action director Sammo Hung (洪金寶), who plays
a supporting but important role in
the follow-up that won’t disappoint fans, though it doesn’t offer many surprises.
The story begins with Ip Man (Yen) fleeing to Hong Kong having defeated the Japanese general in Foshan. To support his family, Ip Man sets up a wing chun academy. But as a newcomer to the British colony, the unassuming kung fu master soon catches the attention of master Hung of the powerful Hung Ga school. Respected by various martial arts schools, Hung insists that, in order to earn his right to teach wing chun in Hong Kong, Ip Man must win duels against local masters.
The challenge leads to a masterfully choreographed fight between Ip Man and Hung that dazzles with its sheer intensity and virtuosity, a scene that deserves to be considered one of the most memorable fighting sequences in kung fu cinema.
The duel ends in a draw, and despite the combatants’ differences, the two come to respect each other’s skills and integrity.
As with the first installment, the second half of the film follows the martial arts hero rising up against foreign oppressors. Only this time, it is not the villainous Japanese our Chinese hero does battle with, but an evil white man in the form of boxing champion Twister (Darren Shahlavi), who brutally beats master Hung to death in what was supposed to be a friendly match.
Outraged, Ip Man challenges the vicious pugilist to a final battle in front of a cheering crowd.
Veteran martial arts star Hung once again creates the adrenaline-pumping, close-range combat sequences that show Yen fighting his way through a fish market melee, tabletop duel and ringside battle.
Director Wilson Yip (葉偉信) and scriptwriter Edmond Wong (黃子桓) neatly tie these action sequences closely to the plot.
One thing that this old-school kung fu fare has gone too far with, however, is its overly caricatured portrait of foreign villains. Though in the first Ip Man movie, the Japanese general, played by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, seems to have a shred of humanity left within him, the white men in the follow-up are comically wicked and corrupt, prompting the contemporary viewer to wonder why the villains are still as embarrassingly witless and one-dimensional as they were in Bruce Lee’s (李小龍) heyday.
Despite its plot holes, the Ip Man series has potential and recalls the 1990s’ Once Upon a Time in China (黃飛鴻) franchise starring Jet Li (李連杰). The brief appearance toward the end of the film of a young Bruce Lee, Ip Man’s famous disciple, hints at the possibility of another sequel, though Yen has reportedly said he won’t be in another Ip Man movie.
What is certain is that competing Ip Man projects will soon hit the silver screen, including Wong Kar-wai’s (王家衛) The Grand Master (一代宗師), currently in development, and Herman Yau’s (邱禮濤) prequel The Legend is Born — Ip Man (葉問前傳), slated for commercial release in July.
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and