The “Ip Man” franchise may not have the global name-recognition of “Star
Wars” but, for fans of Chinese martial-arts movies, it evokes almost
equal allegiance.To get more news about
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Which brings us to “Ip Man 4: The Finale,” the (theoretically, at
least) last film in the series based on the adventures of the very real
Ip Man, a Chinese martial-arts master who led a colorful life that
included having Bruce Lee as a student. As Hong Kong’s South China
Morning Post reported, “fans from around the world were left stunned by
the news” after Yen posted on his social-media accounts that this would
be the last chapter. (But there still may be other iterations of the Ip
Man story as there have been many non-Yen, non-franchise Ip Man movies
over the last decade, such as last year’s “Master Z: The Ip Man
Legacy.”)
With all this in mind, the expectation was that “Ip Man” would go
out with a kung-fu bang, offering an explosive summation to what has
been an entertainingly neck-snapping tour through 20th century Chinese
history as seen through Ip Man’s eyes. That “Ip Man 4” would be set in
the early 60s in San Francisco — where both American racism and
old-school Chinese masters wary of Lee’s desire to teach non-Chinese the
virtues of kung-fu would make for formidable opponents — upped the
ante. After all, in “Ip Man 3,” Yen went mano-a-mano with Mike Tyson.
They’ve got to try and outdo that, right?
Ip Man, who finds out at the start of the film that he has cancer,
travels from his home in Hong Kong to San Francisco at the invitation of
Lee (Chan Kwok-Kwan) who wants Ip Man to see his martial-arts school.
Ip Man also is checking out high schools for his son whose sole purpose
in life seems to be backtalk and disobedience. Sending him abroad on his
own might teach him a few lessons about life after Ip Man is gone.
But Ip Man lands in the middle of a cultural storm. The Chinese are
despised, leading to fights everywhere, from the local high school to a
Marine base where a Chinese soldier’s desire to incorporate kung-fu into
the Corps’ karate-centric curriculum is met with cartoonish racist
resistance. (Why are non-Chinese actors in Chinese martial-arts films
always as stiff as steel planks?)
Meanwhile, in the Chinese community, Ip Man is eyed with suspicion
as he’s the mentor and master for Lee, a man they feel is ruining
kung-fu by popularizing it. So, Ip Man has to start laying down some
very rough justice all over San Francisco.
The fights are well-staged, especially when he goes up against a
fellow Chinese master played by Wu Yue, and xenophobic Marine Barton
Geddes (Scott Adkins). Yen, a trained martial artist himself, has a
stoic style that stands in contrast to, say, Lee’s more theatrical
approach.
And director Wilson Yip, working from a script by Chan Tai-lee,
Hiroshi Fukazawa, Leung Lai-Yin and Edmond Wong, makes a
subtle-as-a-hammer-blow connection between the anti-immigrant fervor of
60 years ago and that of today.
But if you’re waiting for Ip Man to team with Lee for an epic battle
royale, it never happens. In fact, Lee isn’t in much of the movie.
The result is a film that feels like unfinished business. At the
end, there’s a compendium of scenes from the previous “Ip Man” films and
it’s a sweetly nostalgic way to go out.
The Wall