Movie Review: Ip Man: The Legend is Born

By Angela Roberts

July 29, 2011

Ip Man poster

You might wonder why I’m reviewing Ip Man: The Legend is Born. It’s not science fiction, or fantasy, or horror. It’s a semi-biographical historical set in the early 1900s. Sure, there are martial arts, and lots of it, but no flying or magical leaping or battling monsters or anything you usually see in kung fu movies. The most fantastical it gets is in the liberties it takes with its subject matter. But it showed at Fantasia. That’s because one of the proudest traditions at Fantasia has been to show gems of Asian cinema, especially films from mainland China and Hong Kong. Oftentimes, the genre festival circuit is the only way North Americans can view these films. They’re rarely distributed through normal channels. Ip Man and Ip Man 2 were not distributed in North America. And it’s a personal mission of mine to see as many of these types of films as possible whenever I go to the festival.

Ip Man: The Legend is Born is billed as a prequel to the popular films Ip Man and Ip Man 2 starring Donnie Yen, but it’s not actually directly related to those productions. Starring real life Wing Chun martial artist Dennis To as Ip Man, famous teacher of many luminaries of kung fu (most notably Bruce Lee), the film deals with his early years; his schooling in martial arts, his education at St. Stephen’s College, the development of his fighting style, his early love affair, and the conflict and love triangle between himself, his adopted brother Tin Chi, and their friend Lee Mei Wei. Throughout the film, Dennis To and his cast mates get to demonstrate an immense martial arts skill in various beautifully choreographed (by veteran choreographer Tony Leung Siu-Hong) fights, culminating in an amazing climactic battle between Ip Man and Tin Chi.

The film succeeds on several fronts. The fights are awesome, impressive and exciting, but they also fit perfectly into the context of the plot. There are no fights simply for the sake of having a fight. The plot is well-executed, leaving few open threads. Ip Man’s battles with Tin Chi and with the Japanese leader Kitano are great, full of tension and amazing moves, and most impressive for the way they work within the storyline. Also of note is the romance between Ip Man and Wing Shung. It’s sentimental, but the sentimentality works, and the romance absolutely rings more truly than the love triangle between Man, Tin Chi and Mei Wei. It’s convincing without being corny.

Without being an expert on the place and period, the film does appear to me to evoke the 1900s well, presenting the beginnings of real conflicts between China and Japan – which would turn into the Sino-Japanese Wars – in a way that never takes you out of the film. There are some hints of tension with the West, but it’s never emphasized; Ip Man studies English, goes to an English college, consumes Western culture, and even befriends the British bully who insults him. The real villains in this film are the Japanese, and it’s a less overt threat. They work by espionage and treachery, and it’s only at the end when conflicts with the Japanese come to the point of violence. Whether or not you believe the somewhat poorly set up climax to Tin Chi’s story, it is one of those moments in the film where it veers into melodrama.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You expect a little melodrama in Chinese films. But there are points where the cheese is thick, and that occurs especially in any scene that deals with the love triangle. Nervous laughter often accompanies every shot of Mei Wei pouting over her unrequited love for Ip Man. Nervous, because you’re pretty sure they’re being serious.

But evaluated in terms of its strengths and weaknesses, Ip Man: The Legend is Born is an awesome movie. You’re never bored. You’re never disappointed. You leave thinking that you’ve just had a great time and enjoyed a great film. And that’s what’s most important.

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