[Ip Man 2 is screening at the Fantasia Film Festival later today so we take this opportunity to revisit James Marsh's earlier review
of the film.]
IP MAN 2 picks up the action in 1950 as Ip Man, with young son and heavily pregnant wife (Xiong Dai Lin) in tow, arrives in Hong Kong. Ip establishes his own Wing Chun martial arts school but struggles to bring in students, and therefore an income for his impoverished family, until the arrogant, yet inquisitive Wong Leung (Huang Xiaoming) appears. After taking a thrashing, Leung signs up along with a group of his friends and interest finally blossoms for this new fighting style. However, the other martial arts schools, in particular that of Hung Chun Nam (Sammo Hung), are reluctant to let Ip simply set up shop on their turf. When Leung gets into a fight with one of Hung's students (To Yu Hong) and is subsequently held for ransom, Ip Man is forced to face Hung and barter for his release.
As
with its predecessor, IP MAN 2 is very much a film of two halves - the
first charting the establishment and proliferation of Wing Chun through
Hong Kong, thanks to the perseverance and finely-honed skills of its
primary advocate. The film wastes no time in getting to the action and
within just a few minutes Yen clashes first with Huang Xiaoming, then
rival students and street punks, culminating in a fantastic 20-on-1
melee at an abandoned fish market that brings him face-to-face with
Hung. This encounter sets up the film's centrepiece sequence, as Ip Man
is invited to face all the local martial arts masters and must accept
any challenge thrown at him, while fighting the whole time on a large
tabletop. If he stays up long enough, he will be granted permission to
run his school. Inevitably, this leads to a fantastic clash between
Donnie and Sammo, as they unleash their Wing Chun and Hung Kuen on each
other, all the while struggling for balance on a teetering table.
It is
an incredible sequence serviced by an exceptional lead-in over the
preceding hour and the film builds handsomely to this pivotal moment.
Unfortunately, it leaves the film with nowhere to go for its second
hour, so as with the first film, the action turns its attention to the
building tensions between the local Chinese and the foreign governing
forces - this time round being the blustering, boorish British,
personified by an almost cartoonishly ignorant boxer named Twister
(Darren Shahlavi). After he foolishly offends the Chinese during a
ceremonial martial arts display, Twister incurs the wrath of Hung. From
this point on, IP MAN 2 careens into classic tournament territory, and
the unfolding of events bears an uncanny resemblance to those in ROCKY
IV. While this does mean the film delivers a couple of big, bloody
battles between our leading martial artists and this British bulldog,
they fail to live up to the scintillating displays of skill that have
come before them, with motivations of pride, dignity and revenge
enveloping the final third of the film in melodrama.
IP MAN
2 looks fantastic and does a grand job of evoking the period
authentically, lending the film a much-appreciated sense of dramatic
gravitas. As with the first IP MAN film, director Wilson Yip is able to
use the period setting and high production values to create something
more than just another beat-'em up action flick. While characterization
is broad and historical accuracy only fleetingly applied, the script
nevertheless presents a handful of likable and engaging characters and
infuses its story with tension, excitement and a dry wit that ensures it
is never less than enjoyable. The film touches on issues of Colonial
life - such as the British government's interferences with the media,
police brutality and corruption, as well as their general lack of
respect for local culture and customs and if at times it feels a little
more caricature than genuine historical fact, Yip retains an appropriate
balance that gives some context without distracting from the action.
That
said, however, the script sadly does a grave disservice to a couple of
characters brought over from the first film. Simon Yam's Quan and Fan
Siu Wong's Jin are both completely wasted, given nothing to do and in
Fan's case not even the opportunity to fight. Whether their roles, which
are now entirely superfluous, have been trimmed back, or Yip & Co.
simply wanted the actors back on the set, their presence in the film is
now as bewildering as it is frustrating.
The
rest of the cast are as good as they need to be. Donnie Yen is a beacon
of calm and restraint amidst an ocean of social unrest, damaged egos and
untamed youthful exuberance. He convinces as a respected mentor and
teacher, caring family man and total badass, and even handles tricky
onscreen histrionics with a growing confidence and plausibility. Sammo
is his usual unflinching rock of awesome, even as his character displays
signs of age and weakness, and Hung again serves as action director on
the project. Huang Xiaoming is an interesting choice as Leung, Ip Man's
first student and instigator in the inter-school scuffles that bring Ip
and Hung together. Playing a local Cantonese lad he has sadly been
dubbed, and it does make one wonder whether or not someone like Andy On
might have been a better choice, but he makes for a charismatic presence
nonetheless and appears to hold his own in his fights, even if he is
relegated to little more than an onlooker in the film's second half.