The Grandmaster (2013)

The Grandmaster (2013) Chinese Title: 一代宗師 Translation: A Generation of Grandmasters

Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Zhao Benshan, Xiao Shenyang, Song Hye-kyo, Wang Qingxiang, Max Zhang Jin, Shang Tielong, Lo Hoi-Pang, Cung Le

Director: Wong Kar-Wai

Action Director: Yuen Woo-Ping

The Grandmaster came out at the height of Ip Man-ia in East Asia. Although Wong Fei-Hung was the “big thing” in Chinese folk heroes in the 50 and 60s, and then in the 90s, he was more or less replaced in the 00s with Ip Man…THE MAN WHO TRAINED BRUCE LEE!!!! I do find it cool how martial arts masters in China develop their own folklore that is miles removed from whatever might’ve happened in their real lives. Bruce Lee became the subject of that within a few years of his own death. Ip Man had to wait more than 30 years after his passing to reach that point. That means that in two or three decades, we’ll start getting movies about the martial awesomeness of Jimmy Wang Yu!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Ip Man-ia. It started in 2008 with the first Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen Ip Man film. Two years later, we got both a sequel and a pseudo-spin-off, A Legend is Born: Ip Man. That starts Dennis To—who looked A LOT like Donnie Yen—as a young Ip Man who has to fight Japanese terrorist babies and ninjas. By 2012, China had its own 50-episode Ip Man TV series being broadcast. The following year, we got Ip Man: The Final Fight and this movie. We eventually got two more “official” Ip Man films, a spin-off to those movies, and a whole bunch of low-budget Ip Man movies, including Ip Man: Kung Fu Master and Ip Man and the Four Kings.

Arthouse director Wong Kar-Wai apparently wanted to make a movie about Ip Man even before Donnie Yen started the trend. I’m guessing that his script went through all sorts of rewrites, plus he actually required his actors to train in the styles they were supposed to represent. Apparently, actor Chang Chen became proficient enough in bajiquan that he actually won a regional tournament. I guess actor Tony Leung broke his arm while training in wing chun, which is what ultimately held up production, although knowing Wong Kar-Wai, I wonder if he spent a good chunk of the film’s production time in editing.

The final product is a bit of an odd beast. It is about Ip Man, but in a lot of ways, it isn’t. In fact, the little life details that make Ip Man who he was are given so little attention that the film’s themes could have been explored with a completely fictitious protagonist and the result would have largely been the same.

The film opens in 1936 with Ip Man in his early 1940s. This is a year before the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937 – 1945) started and Ip Man is still living well thanks to his and his wife’s families’ old money. He tells us in narration that the first 40 years or so of his life were relatively easy compared to what came later. Ip Man lives in Foshan with his wife, Cheung Wing-Shing (South Korean actress Song Hye-kyo, of John Woo’s The Crossing and “Descendants of the Sun”), and four children. But that’s really not important.

What is important is that Master Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxian, Red Cliff and Song of the Assassins) is retiring. Master Gong is an important figure in the martial arts for a variety of reasons. He is the first master to “combine” the internal styles of both baguazhang and xingyiquan (of hsing-I chuan) and he has opened martial arts academies all over China, including in the south. Thus, he is seen as something of a unifying force in the world of Chinese martial arts. As he is retiring and returing to his home in the north, he decides to duel with a representative of Southern Chinese kung fu in a “goodwill duel.” The representative of Southern China is ultimately chosen to be Ip Man, apparently chosen on the basis of a duel he had with a gang (led by True Legend’s Cung Le) at the very beginning of the film.

While Ip Man is preparing for the duel, Master Gong’s top student, Ma San (Max Zhang, of Rise of the Legend and Undiscovered Tomb), tries to insert himself into the mix as a “mini-boss.” You know, “If y’all can’t beat me, don’t even try to fight my master.” Well, Master Gong is incensed with his students behavior and send him home. But that’s not important.

What is important is that the duel goes as planned, although it is carried out in an unconventional manner, with Ip Man being victorious (albeit in a humble way). Master Gong retires, but his daughter, Gong’er (Zhang Ziyi, of The Banquet and Rush Hour 2), doesn’t like the idea of dad losing. So, she challenges Ip Man to a duel and sorta wins, I guess. But the duel reveals something of a mutual attraction between the two.

Before Ip Man can travel to the north to see her and check out her 64 Palms—I’m sure most men would like to test out Zhang Ziyi’s 64 palms—war breaks out and all of that old money is lost, plunging the Ip family into poverty. Ip Man eventually has to go to Hong Kong in search of greener pastures, but that’s not important. What is important is that Ma San has become a puppet for the Japanese forces, which leads to his expulsion from the Bagua school by Master Gong. So, Ma San just kills him and takes over the school anyway. Gong’er is angry about this and decides to throw away a promising marriage and career in medicine—do not ask me to explain the cultural implications of having a career only if married—in order to seek revenge against Ma San. Will the paths of Gong’er and Ip Man ever cross again?

As I stated before, the odd thing about The Grandmaster is how all the events in Ip Man’s life that separate him from “generic kung fu movie protagonist” are given the short shrift in the script. We find out that he is permanently separated from his wife after moving to Hong Kong, although the film only mentions it a bit of narration. We never find out the historical and political implications that led to their separation. We find out that his two daughters die (of illness?) during the war, but the film spends no time with his children, so we have little reason to care. Like the other films, The Grandmaster completely glosses over his (apparently) notorious opium addiction. I guess unless your name is Iron Bridge Sam, whitewashing your kung fu folk hero’s drug issues is important in saving face.

So what is the film about in the end? The first act is a celebration of the final days of the old wulin, or martial world. There is a certain nostalgia of the old days when kung fu masters would converge in brothels and bordellos in order to have duels (witnessed by prostitutes and their clients). These scenes represent the film at its most beautiful, with wonderful cinematography and art direction, thanks to Oscar nominees Philippe le Sourd and William Chang. This is driven home in one of the film’s final scenes, where Zhang Ziyi’s Gong’er is walking down a Hong Kong street at night. Observing all the smaller buildings used as kung fu schools, she laments, “Is this all that’s left the martial world?”

The second two acts become something of a series of comparisons and contrasts between the directions that Ip Man’s and Gong’er’s lives take after their fateful duel. Ip Man is forced into poverty and goes to Hong Kong, where he humbly spends the rest of his days passing on Wing Chun to a new generation. Meanwhile, Gong’er has it all, but willingly throws it all way in order to save face (or family pride). She gets what she wants—revenge—but it comes at a price, both to her and the kung fu style she represents. Indeed, an entire lineage of baguazhang is lost by the end of the film due to her actions.

There are two climaxes to the film. The external climax is actually shown in flashback form and details the final showdown between Gong’er and Ma San. That starts at about the 80-minute mark and lasts for ten minutes. Much like Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time, the real climax is emotional, much like Maggie Cheung’s monologue in that movie. In this case, it is the final meeting between Ip Man and Gong’er and her evaluation of the life that she has led. The first time I watched this, I was disappointed at how unlike a traditional kung fu movie the story structure was. Watching it a second time, I was actually quite moved by both Gong’er and her final soliloquy, especially when it flashbacks to the character as a child. We see the enormous potential in her, which ended up never getting realized as the result of both cultural norms and personal decisions. As someone who often feels like his own potential by the directions his life has taken, it hits me in the feels to see that happen in a character in such a stark way. 

If you can get around the film’s unconventional story structure, I would say that the main flaw of the film is Chang Chen’s character, The Razor. Introduced tangentially as an anti-Japanese agent, he follows a life path rather similar to Ip Man, finding a similar niche in the Hong Kong martial arts scene at the same time Ip Man’s reputation is taking off. The problem is that his character literally never crosses paths with Ip Man and doesn’t have a particularly meaningful moment with Gong’er when taking in the story as a whole. The entire film could have been shortened by the duration of his scenes and it would not have affected the final product. That said, his big fight scene is a banger.

Speaking of which, the fight scenes were staged by Yuen Woo-Ping and his team, which won Yuen a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Action Choreography, beating out Donnie’s Special I.D. and Andy Lau’s Firestorm, among others. Early trailers suggested that this would be about as wired up as Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy, but that really is not the case. The fight scenes are grounded for the most part, save people getting knocked back ten or fifteen feet on occasion. There is a lot of slow motion in the choreography, which gives the fight sequences very much an artistic, “beautiful” feel. We get to see a lot of styles on display: wing chun (Tony Leung), bagua (Zhang Ziyi), hsing-I (Max Zhang), and even some hung gar courtesy of old school actor Lau Kar-Yung (Dragon’s Claws and The 36 Crazy Fists). The choreography is great and photography and editing are just gorgeous. The most intense fight is the aforementioned one between Razor and his colleagues, where he gives a lesson in bajiquan, which uses a lot of elbow strikes. The big fight between Gong’er and Ma San is a highlight, as the two go at with two of the major Chinese internal styles on a train platform in slow motion as the train is leaving the station. The entire sequence is just shot to perfection.

I think The Grandmaster is the sort of film you need to watch more than once. The first time may be off-putting in the way the plot progresses, especially if your expectations are based on Donnie’s Ip Man films. But once you get past the shock of its unconventional storytelling, there is some important martial wisdom and poignant character moments to experience, even if they don’t involve the characters you would expect in a Ip Man biopic.

Bruce Lee and I (1976)

Bruce Lee and I (1976)
Aka: Bruce Lee – His Last Days, His Last Nights; I Love You, Bruce Lee
Chinese Title: 李小龍與我
Translation: Bruce Lee and Me

Starring: Betty Ting Pei, Danny Lee Sau-Yin, Wong San, Chin Ti, Wang Sha, Sze-Ma Wah-Lung, James Nam Seok-Hoon, Tony Lou Chun-Ku, Chan Lau, Chin Yuet-Sang, Tyrone Hsu Hsia, Huang Man
Director: Lo Mar
Action Director: Tong Gai, Yuen Woo-Ping

 

So, Bruce’s mistress Betty Ting Pei started her own production company, B&B Film Co. (“Betty and Bruce”?), to produce this 100-minute pity party. And then give it the running theme that “Everybody wants to exploit poor Betty” and “Nobody sees Betty as anything other than a sexpot.

The movie opens with a black-clad Betty walking alone on the beach while some sad ballad plays over the proceedings, letting us know that we are in for some pretentious crap. The next scene turns back the clock a few days, with Bruce Lee (Inframan’s Danny Lee) showing up at Betty’s pad and having frenetic drug-fueled sex (complete with random inserts of Betty writhing around naked on her bed, sans Bruce). After she gets out of the shower, she finds Bruce dead on the bed.

Betty is soon accosted by reporters and is slut-shamed all over Hong Kong, but not before declaring to the Little Dragon’s grave that because of her love for him, she will endure all the finger pointing. After almost getting assault by the Nunchaku Gang (led by Lady Whirlwind’s Chin Yuet-Sang), Betty tells her side of a story to a bar owner (Little Superman’s James Nam).

At this point, the film becomes Betty Ting Pei: Her First Days and Nights. We have 29-year-old Betty Ting Pei (still Betty, but with a long hair wig) as a high school student in Taiwan. Nobody likes her at the girl’s school she attends—did I mention that the film is a pity party? She gets expelled for fighting and spends her days visiting movie theaters. Her beauty calls the attention of a sleazy movie producer (Way of the Dragon’s Chin Ti), who slips her a roofie and takes naked pictures of her in order to blackmail her into being the body double for other actresses. After that goes on for a while, she breaks her contract and flees to Hong Kong.

The producer follows her there and tries to have her beat up, but Bruce Lee shows up out of nowhere and defends her. The benevolent Bruce gives her some money and leaves. Some time later, Betty is now working as an escort for old rich men and Bruce is filming The Big Boss. After the latter takes off, Betty recognizes her savior and returns the money he had given her, which sparks his interest in her. They become friends of sorts and we the viewer are treated to more pity party scenes as Betty Ting laments that nobody sees her as good for anything but porn. At one point, she shows her body (in a one-piece) to Bruce, who says that she would be the top porn star if he were a producer (his weird sense of humor in the film).

Life goes on and Betty’s escort work eventually leads her to develop a gambling habit, in which she throws away all of savings, plus tens of thousands in loans. She disappears for long swaths of time, which causes Bruce’s participation in Fist of Fury to suffer…because without that Betty coochie around, he just cannot concentrate. At one point, he shtups a female fan (Kong San) just to release some of his pent-up rage and lust, which becomes a subject of concern for Raymond Chow (called “Mr. Kong” here, played by Wang Sha) and Lo Wei’s wife (Huang Man).

Betty’s gambling addiction leads her to lose her house and get in trouble with some casino ruffians, including Yuen Woo-Ping collaborators Tyrone Hsu Hsia and Yen Shi-Kwan. Bruce saves her at the last moment and things start to look up for her as he negotiates a starring role for her in an American-backed production. After a round of celebratory sex—but without the pills and pot—Bruce has a massive headache and dies in her flat. And then the aforementioned barkeeper beats up the Nunchaku Gang with his Taekwondo skills and declares Betty to be innocent. The End.

There is a certain irony of producing a biographical film in which you bemoan how people only liked you for your tits and ass, and then willingly spend the film showing off your tits and ass. It is the Chinese movie equivalent to Mariah Carey’s Glitter, in which she plays a singer who doesn’t want to dress provocatively, but was made at a point in a career where she was handling her recent divorce by turning the tramp-o-meter up to 11. Or how Emily Ratajkowski is always talking about being exploited, but then shows up to pro-Women’s Rights rallies dressed as a cheap whore. Throw two more pairs of breasts that are specifically catered to the so-called “male gaze”—remember, Betty was producing this—and it all rings hollow. Oh, and the trampoline love scene must be one of the silliest things ever committed to film.

There is a lot of talk about Bruce Lee having a family—a wife and two kids—but they are never actually shown. The film really makes it look like Bruce had simply abandoned his family in the States in order to make movies in Hong Kong and sleep with fans and wannabe starlets in his free time. Bruce is shown as having taken an interest in Betty as a sort of compassion for her rough life, which apparently paralleled his own rough upbringing (but wasn’t his family well off because of their success in the entertainment industry?). So, as per this film, he saw himself as Betty’s protector…although whenever a married man decides to take on a put-upon woman as a project, adultery is usually in the waiting.

Being a Bruce biopic, there are a handful of fight scenes to keep things interesting in between Betty airing out her grievances that everybody just wants to [freak] her. Tong Gai and Yuen Woo-Ping are great choreographers, but Brucesploitation choreographers they are not. Yuen did it better a few years later in Tower of Death. There are a few fights meant to represent scenes from The Big Boss and Fist of Fury. The latter is interesting, because this film’s interpretation of the legendary Dojo Fight is to have a woman in ripped clothing standing in the background, suggesting that Chen Zhen fought the Japanese to avenge the rape of either Nora Miao or Maria Yi’s character. Later there is a sequence in which Bruce fights some challengers, including Tony Lou, Tino Wong and Chan Lau in your typical chop-socky rock quarry. The fight is full-out old school shapes, which is amusing, considering that the film is set in modern times and Bruce Lee completely eschewed that sort of thing. The last fight pits Bruce against the casino fighters, which is a bit more akin to the pace of his screen fight. That said, like The Dragon Lives, the film’s climax is also Betty Ting Pei’s, if you catch my drift.

I always wonder why they didn’t get Bruce Le (aka Huang Kin-Lung) to play the lead role. Maybe he was still a little green behind the ears as an actor. Maybe Danny Lee had a bit more marquee value. But Bruce Le had already been working for the Shaw Brothers since 1974 and even in Inframan, he was doing the Bruce Lee imitation bit in his fights. I really would have liked Bruce Le to have been choreographed at least once by Yuen Woo-Ping and see that result. Maybe his contract had run out. I do wonder what would have happened to his career had he appeared in this film in 1976 instead of Bruce’s Fingers.

The Legend of Zu (2001)

The Legend of Zu (2001)

Aka: Zu Warriors
Chinese Title: 蜀山傳

Translation: Legend of Shu Mountains

Starring: Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Louis Koo Tin-Lok, Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi, Kelly Lin Hsi-Lei, Zhang Ziyi, Jacky Wu Jing, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, Lau Shun, Patrick Tam Yiu-Man, Wu Gang

Director: Tsui Hark

Action Director: Yuen Woo-Ping

I would go on a limb to say that The Legend of Zu represented the first fruits of the international success of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. A costume fantasy? Check. An acclaimed director? Check. Yuen Woo-Ping directing the action? Check. A member of CTHD’s cast showing up for a paycheck? Check—in this case, it was Zhang Ziyi. 

For this particular effort, Tsui Hark, hot on the heels of Time and Tide, convinced investors to foot the bill for a big-budget remake of his own groundbreaking fantasy epic, Zu: The Warriors of Magic Mountain. Both films were based on the novel Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu by Huanzhulouzhu, although this film is almost completely unrecognizable from the earlier film, save for Sammo Hung wearing the same get-up he did that, and a brief moment where see Cecelia Cheung dressed in the same blue dress Brigitte Lin wore in the earlier film. Everything else is a bloated, incomprehensible CGI mess that is more exhausting to watch than anything else.

The film starts with some title cards and a narration informing us that the Shushan, or Zu Mountains, in the Sichuan province (bordering on Tibet) are the home to lots of legends and mysticism. The narrator informs us that the peaks of the mountains have become home to a race of demi-gods who train in the martial arts and use the region’s mystical energies to lead them into a constant state of rebirth, thus guaranteeing them immortality in this world. I guess the difference between that and the birth-rebirth cycle of regular mortals that is described in Buddhism is that the inhabitants of the Zu mountains who are reborn often do so as adults and can access their old memories from previous lives with enough meditation and martial training. So it feels less like living a new life than it is continuing an old one in a new body.

All of that puts the film into Xianxia territory, which is different from wuxia in terms of storytelling mechanics. Wuxia pian involves itself with the Wulin (i.e. The Martial World) and the Jianghu (i.e. the swordsman and martial artists who inhabit it) and although some of the esoteric martial arts styles may be outright supernatural, they are still people fighting against other people. Xianxia delves deeper into the fantasy genre, where the characters are often what sources call “Cultivators,” people who try to achieve immortality based on magic and supernatural powers, which are rooted in Taoism. Stories that involve conflict between heavenly, mortal and demon realms fall into the Xianxia genre. And The Legend of Zu ticks all of those boxes.

The film opens the Kunlun Peak in the Zu mountains, where Dawn (Cecelia Cheung, of The King of Comedy and Running on Karma) is passing her final teachings to her student, Sky King (Ekin Cheng, of The Storm Riders and Heroic Duo). Apparently, Dawn should be indestructible, but she has allowed her feelings for Sky King to keep her from reaching her potential. At that moment, a swarm of CGI skulls (referred to as “evil spirits”) show up and destroy Dawn. But she leaves her signature weapon, the Moon Orb—a large crescent blade that can fly around according to the user’s thoughts—to Sky King.

Some time later, the Ormei School, led by Whitebrows (Sammo Hung, of The Millionaire’s Express and Filthy Guy), is prepping its students to fight against the evil spirits, who are under the control of a powerful demon named Insomnia. There is a huge battle of CGI effects between Insomnia, Sky King, and Red (Louis Koo, of Paradox and Warriors of Future), who is Whitebrows’s senior student. The fight drags on quite a bit and, at one point, both men are forced to fight their clones. Whitebrows is ultimately able to defeat Insomnia, but a piece of him is broken off and flees into the Blood Cavern.

Our heroes can’t use their powerful weapons in the Blood Cavern, lest they get absorbed by the locale’s magic. So, Whitebrows leaves Red to watch over the entrance to the cavern while he reconvenes at the Ormei school to consult with Buddhist priest Master Transcendental (Lau Shun, of Swordsman and A Chinese Ghost Story Part II) as to how to defeat Insomnia. They come to the conclusion that the Heaven and Thunder swords can be combined to create a superweapon surpassing all limits. 

But to combine them requires something resembling a Dragon Ball Z level of fusion between their respective holders—Enigma (Cecelia Cheung again) and Thunder (Patrick Tam, of The Duel and A Chinese Tall Story). For the record, Enigma is, as you guessed, a reincarnation of Dawn. The two Ormei students attempt the fusion for the good of the universe. Thunder hesitates (or gets distracted or something) at the last second while attempting the fusion and blows up. 

Whitebrows and Transcendental are able to reincarnate Thunder in adult form as Ying (Jackie Wu Jing, of Wolf Warrior and The Wandering Earth). However, it will take time for him to re-learn his martial arts skills and become “illuminated,” which will allow him to remember his previous life. Whitebrows retreats from the Zu Mountains and leaves Sky King in charge of Ormei. Sky King tries to help Enigma recall her previous life as Dawn—and almost burns himself to death trying to transfer the ownership of the Thunder sword to himself. Meanwhile, Red is just chilling at the mouth of the Blood Cavern and befriends a little pixie named Amnesia (Kelly Lin, Fulltime Killer and Running Out of Time 2). She turns out to be a minion of Insomnia and possesses Red, transforming into an evil angel. Plus, there soldiers who fight with razor-sharp vertebrae swords, mystical blue flames, new weapons, a giant monster made of CGI blood, and Zhang Ziyi thrown in for good measure!

Watching The Legend of Zu is a frustrating experience. The movie has that same breakneck pacing that a lot of Hong Kong films, especially 1990s wuxia pian, have, but almost nothing resembling real exposition. The film depends on one’s familiarity either with the source material, of Chinese wuxia and fantasy tropes in order to understand the story. And even then, there are enough characters, powers, and secret weapons that there is no time to explore any of it. It almost feels like an RPG in which the dungeon master was just making up lore as he went along…or perhaps a particularly-involved hard fantasy novel series in which Tsui Hark adapted Book Five (of Seven) and left out all the backstories and magic mechanics described in earlier entries. It’s simply impossible to developing any feelings for the characters amidst the deluge of fantasy plot tropes thrown at the viewer at dizzying speeds and CGI miasma assaulting one’s senses.

The Miramax trailer for the 2005 straight-to-DVD release was rather dishonest. Zhang Ziyi was still basking in her fame from CTHD; Rush Hour 2; and Hero (“presented” by Quentin Tarantino) when this finally reached American shores. So the trailer was cut and narrated to make it sound like she was an integral part of the story: the human warrior who must team up with a god (Ekin Cheng) in order to save the world from Evil. Anyone who expected much from her was surely disappointed. Zhang Ziyi plays the daughter of a mortal general stationed in the lower heights of the Zu mountains who travels to the peaks in order to join the Ormei school. But she really does not contribute anything to the actual story and the resolution of the external conflict. It is mainly an extended cameo by someone who was really popular at the time.

Viewers who were hoping for Yuen Woo-Ping to give us more of his wire-fu magic like in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon will be sorely disappointed with The Legend of Zu. All of the action is CGI nonsense. Louis Koo’s Red is a little neat in that his initial form has him fighting with razor-sharp metallic wings like X-Men’s Archangel. But yeah, mainly “swords” that are manifested as beam weapons and stuff like that. The only real martial sequence is a brief sword fight between Zhang Ziyi and Wu Jing, which is not related to the actual narrative. It’s like the filmmakers said, “We have this martial arts actor and this actress that people think knows martial arts, we should probably have them fight…for some reason.” The choreography in that scene isn’t bad, but it is far from enough to satisfy fight fanatics. And to think that the entire film needed three action directors—assisting Yuen is his protégé, Ku Huen-Chiu, and Tsui Hark regular Yuen Bun—just boggles the mind.

Tsui Hark would follow this disappointment with Black Mask II and Era of the Vampires (aka Tsui Hark’s Vampire Hunters). It wouldn’t be until 2005 that Tsui Hark would get his touch back with Seven Swords, which was him doing for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and those films what his own The Blade had done for movies like the Swordsman trilogy and Butterfly and Sword. Frankly, he should have stuck making loopy Jean-Claude Van Damme action vehicles than a lot of these films. Heck, I would have liked to have seen a JCVD film choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping.

Ip Man 3 (2015)

Ip Man 3 (2015)

Starring: Donnie Yen, Lynn Xiong, Max Zhang, Mike Tyson, Patrick Tam Yiu-Man, Karena Ng Chin-Yu, Kent Cheng Jak-Si, Louis Cheung Kai-Chung, Leung Kar-Yan, Danny Chan Kwok-Kwan

Director: Wilson Yip

Action Director: Yuen Woo-Ping

Hong Kong, 1959. Wing Chun Grand Master Ip Man is now 66 years old. He has been estranged from his wife, Cheung Wing-Sing, for almost a decade thanks to the communist revolution in China and the closing of the border between Hong Kong and China. His two sons—Ip Chun and Ip Ching—are now adults. Ip also has two daughters, but we don’t know much about them. Ip Man has since shacked up with a mistress, with whom he has a third son, Ip Siu-Wah. Some former child actor named Bruce Lee had been training privately under Ip Man for a few years—Lee couldn’t train openly because his mother had European blood in her—and had even won a local boxing tournament.

Now throw all those facts away because Ip Man 3 doesn’t really care about them.

The film opens with Ip Man (Donnie Yen), now an established and respected teacher in Hong Kong, being approached by Bruce Lee (Danny Chow, who had played the Little Dragon in the “Legend of Bruce Lee” series), who wants lessons. That really goes nowhere except to establish Lee as a bit of an arrogant show-off. Once again, in real life, Bruce had already been training for several years under Ip Man by 1959…but don’t let facts get in the way.

Later that day, little Ip Ching (Wang Shi)—oh, those darn facts--gets in a fight at school with a new kid, Cheung Fong (Cui Can). Both of them “know” wing chun and are trying to prove to the other whose kung fu is better. When Cheung’s father, Cheung Tin-Chi (Max Zhang, of Master Z and The Invincible Dragon), fails to show up to pick up his son, the Ip’s have the kid over for dinner. The dad eventually arrives and is visibly jealous of Ip Man, although he’s polite enough to hold it in. Later that evening, Cheung is fighting illegal bouts down at the wharf, run by the local scumbag Ma King-Sang (Patrick Tam, of The Legend of Zu and The Legend of Speed). Ma is working for a crime boss named Frank (Mike Tyson, of China Salesman), who is involved in a real estate scheme that requires him to buy up some properties, including Ip Ching’s school.

The next day, Ip Man heads down to the martial arts association clubhouse thingie for a group photo with the local masters, including Master Tin Ngo-San (Leung Kar-Yan, of The Victim and The Thundering Mantis). He forgets a date he had scheduled with his wife, Cheung Wing-Sing (a returning Lynn Xiong), who sends him to pick up their son, Ip Ching, from school. While he’s there, Ma King-Sang shows up to physically coerce the principal (Tats Lau, of Gorgeous and The Good of Cookery) into signing over the property. Ip Man shows up in the nick of time to fight off Ma and his ruffians. They come back the next evening, however, but Ip Man and his students are waiting for them. A huge fight breaks out, and although Ip Man—and Cheung Tin-Chi, who was in the neighborhood--gives the thugs a good walloping, they still manage to burn down some of the classrooms.

Ip Man and his students agree to stand guard over the school day and night for the next few weeks. This keeps him away from his wife and son, especially the former. Cheung Wing-Sing starts experiencing severe abdominal pains, which turns out to be cancer. She decides not to tell her husband until after a traumatic episode involving Ma King-Sang kidnapping some of the children from the school, including Ip Ching and Cheung Fong. Yes, that is resolved via a big fight down at the wharf, but it also spurs the next bit of character development from Ip Man.

Once he knows that his wife is terminally ill, Master Ip takes a step back from his kung fu duties in order to spend as much time with her as he can. But, there is not only still the matter of Frank the crime boss to be resolved, but now Cheung Tin-Chi has decided that he wants to be the wing chun teacher in town. He starts defeating all the local masters in one-on-one duels while preaching how his wing chun is “pure.” It won’t be long before he’s challenging Ip Man to a duel to determine whose wing chun is the best.

As a biopic, Ip Man 3 offers little historical value. There are little details the film gets right—Cheung Wing-Sing did indeed die of cancer in 1960; Bruce Lee was an accomplished dancer—but the context in which those details are placed is quite far removed from actual history. But then again, we Hong Kong cinephiles ignore that sort of thing in the Once Upon a Time in China and Drunken Master franchises, so we should ignore it here. I suppose because the film is set at a time that our parents were alive, the fudging of the details makes it harder to stomach than it would be for a historical film set in the 19th century.

If you can get past the historical inaccuracies, Ip Man 3 is a particularly compelling movie when it comes to depicting a man trying to balance the needs of his family with those of his career. Ip Man is never a bad husband or father, but he is imperfect and often allows what he believes are his duties to the community trump his family obligations. He’s not wrong for wanting to protect his son’s school, even if it comes at a price. And once he realizes what’s at stake in his own home, he does make the necessary sacrifices, even at the cost of his own reputation. And Ip’s wife is understanding enough to appreciate his efforts to spend time with her during her final days, but also encourage him in doing what comes best to him: kung fu. Donnie Yen and Lynn Xiong’s scenes together are quiet and loving in a way that keeps the viewer in the film even when the fists aren’t flying.

The film also benefits by dialing down the Rocky IV levels of jingoism that hampered the second half of Ip Man 2. Yes, Frank the crime boss is a foreigner—Mike Tyson jumps back and forth between saying his lines in English and Cantonese, Michael Wong-style—but he never talks down to the Chinese. There is some talk about the British members of the police force being corrupt, but it never feels like they’re trying to pound it into our skulls that foreigners are all racist assholes like they did in Ip Man 2 and 4, and Master Z. For most of the first half, the main villain is Ma King-Sang, who is so despicable that his master (Leung Kar-Yan’s character) wants to kick his ass. And the final act pushes Cheung Tin-Chi, a fellow Chinese, into the forefront as the main antagonist. In other words, the two main antagonists are Chinese, with the foreigner serving mainly a secondary background antagonist.

Speaking of antagonist, the action remains of the high standard established by the first two films. Sammo Hung did not return for this one with, with the action duties moving over to Yuen Woo-Ping. Yuen Woo-Ping had worked on another Ip Man film, The Grandmaster, for which he had won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Action Choreography. His work here was nominated for the same award, but lost to Nicky Li Chung-Chi for SPL 2: A Time for Consequences. This was the first team up between Donnie Yen and Yuen Woo-Ping since their falling out two decades before during the filming of Wing Chun (how ironic). Interestingly enough, despite Yuen Woo-Ping being synonymous with wire-fu, the action in Ip Man 3 is probably the most grounded of the three films in the franchise up to that point. If anyone complains about wire-fu in this film, please feel free to ignore them.

During the film’s first half, the two major set pieces involve Donnie Yen taking on Ma King-Sang’s gang. Their second encounter is particularly large scale, with Donnie fighting a half-dozen trained boxers, plus dozens of nameless thugs armed with sticks and hatchets. Donnie gets to fight with a long pole, which then gets broken and becomes something closer to an escrima fight. Max Zhang joins the fun—his son was kidnapped, too—and takes out half a dozen thugs with wing chun, too. Zhang also gets to participate in some illegal bouts, where he destroys the competition with his wing chun skills. 

I think this was turning point in Zhang’s career. He cut his teeth on low-budget productions like Chinese Heroes and The Undiscovered Tomb, but by the early 2010s, he found himself with supporting roles in more prestigious productions like The Grandmaster and Rise of the Legend. Two-thousand fifteen saw him play Cheung Tin-Chi in this and the main villain in SPL 2: A Time For Consequences. Afterward, a lot more opportunities for playing the lead role started to pop up for Zhang. These days, the Mainland action films he’s been showing up in have arguably been beneath his talents, but he’s still keeping busy at least.

Back to the action, there are two important fights during the film’s second half. One is the much-awaited showdown between Donnie Yen and Mike Tyson. And I must say: it’s a fine little fight. Divorced from the racist attitudes that made Donnie’s bout with the late Darren Shahlavi in Ip Man 2 annoying, watching a wing chun master fight a Western boxer is just good ol’ fashioned entertainment. I like the bit when Donnie gets into an especially-low wing chun stance—probably the chum kiu form--and counters Tyson’s sheer brute strength with more intricate legwork, elbows doubling as blocks and strikes, and a shifting center of gravity.

Then there’s the climax, which is the throwdown between the two wing chun masters. The fight is broken into three sections: a staff duel, a butterfly sword fight, and then hand-to-hand wing chun goodness. The staff duel involves the Dragon Poles, which are heavy weapons that can reach up to eight feet in length, sometimes longer. The butterfly sword fight is as authentic as you could expect in a movie tailored to mainstream tastes, and a far cry from the wired-up baht jam do vs. spear duel of YWP’s earlier Wing Chun (although I like that fight, too). One of the neat details is the high-pitched clang of the blades striking and dragged across each other, which is so loud that the fight’s observers are visibly unnerved. Then we get to the hand-to-hand goodness, which features chi sau, biu jee (or “darting fingers”) and, of course, the famous one-inch punch. The finale of Ip Man 3 is the sort of “fight clinic as an action scene” that I don’t think we’ve seen in a mainstream action movie since the glory days of Lau Kar-Leung at the Shaw Brothers. And more power to Donnie Yen, Max Zhang, Yuen Woo-Ping and Wilson Yip for pulling it off!