![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Review: Ip Man 3 (葉問3) (2015)
This was alright. As a story it was kind of cheesy and extremely on the nose, but we’re watching this movie for the fights and not for the historical commentary, are we.
Spoilers.
Story
The first story line was about thugs trying to get the local primary school principal to sell the school so that they could have the land. Ip Man and company fought them off.
A second story line was about the relationship between Ip Man and his wife Wing-sing. Since Ip Man was busy protecting the neighbourhood, he didn’t have as much time for his wife and family. He’d be late picking up Ip Ching from school, he’d forget about the dance class they signed up together for, etc. Later on, Wing-sing found out she had a tumour.
The third story line was about Cheung Tin-chi, an up-and-comer who wanted to challenge Ip Man. He originally worked for the thugs to get money to start his own martial arts school. Then he went around challenging other masters for notoriety. He finally challenged Ip Man, though on the day of, Ip Man had planned a dance class with his wife and so he did not attend. Ip Man spent several days with Wing-sing in the hospital, but Wing-sing arranged another duel between the two.
Of course, our protagonist Ip Man won in the end, though Tin-chi did not die. Ip Man simply emphasized that they did not fight for the glory of Wing Chun. Rather, they only ever fought to protect their loved ones.
The story was whatever. It was generic enough and it kind of lost itself along the way because the major story line was generally the thugs, but somehow streamlined into Tin-chi’s challenge.
As well, the story really hit people on the head with the morality themes, about how they were all fighting to protect the kids. The villains were cartoonishly evil. I felt like I was being lectured by our protagonists which got kind of annoying.
I was looking stuff up about Ip Man’s life and I think at this point the movie took lots of creative liberties to show Ip Man in a better light. So I think this movie series is more like the Ip Man cinematic universe than an actual attempt to recount history.
Production
Of course the fighting was the star here. I feel like Donnie Yen is more upright in posture. I know Wing Chun is more about keeping posture. But in comparison, I felt that Zhang Jin was more dynamic in his fighting, his fighting had more life injected into it.
The inclusion of the Thai fighter and Mike Tyson were add-ons that didn’t really affect the story too much but I actually enjoyed that. It introduced something a bit different from the first two instalments. The first two instalments had a more serious story. While the story in Ip Man 3 was serious, it wasn’t so deep and it was honestly cartoonish at times. So to make up for that, the inclusion of different fighting styles did keep me engaged.
The acting was whatever. The best acting came from Kent Cheng in my opinion, but we knew he was a great actor. A lot of the other actors had some voice acting dubbing going on that made their deliveries more wooden.
Characters
Ip Man
Our main character. The entire neighbourhood loved him, and he loved them back, but his love was stretched thin so that his wife (and son) sometimes came second. After Wing-sing revealed her diagnosis, Ip Man understood that he’d been neglecting his family and put aside his practice to take care of her. And in the end he relayed that message to Tin-chi.
Cheung Wing-sing
Wing-sing was Ip Man’s wife and a representation of his family life. She was annoyed that he was away so much taking care of the neighbourhood. She understood why he did it but she was still annoyed.
She grew weaker right before Ip Man’s eyes and he didn’t even realize until she broke down in front of him. As she grew more frail, Ip Man took care of her more. At one point she told him that she thought he took good are of her already, which I thought was a little bullshit considering how neglected she felt before. But I think it was more that she was coming to accept what her husband was.
Wing-sing said that she missed the sounds of him practising Wing Chun and so he practised a bit for her. She understood that her husband was Wing Chun and that it would be hard to separate him from it.
Cheung Tin-chi
Tin-chi was also a Wing Chun martial artist. He was a rickshaw driver, but he had plans on becoming a great master.
He first saved some money by doing jobs for the thugs. Then he used that money to rent a space for his martial arts school. He also used that money to get the reporter to do some stories on him beating other local martial arts masters and that was how his practice grew.
Tin-chi finally challenged Ip Man to a battle, claiming that Ip Man’s Wing Chun was not traditional. Ip Man didn’t really take the challenge seriously, and on the intended day, he’d planned a dance class with his wife because he’d missed one before. While Wing-sing was in hospital, she wrote a letter to plan another duel for Ip Man and Tin-chi.
They fought, and Ip Man won. But Ip Man did not care whether his martial art was traditional or not. He enforced that all martial arts was good for was protecting one’s family and friends.
Ma King-sang
Sang was a local thug. Sang reported to Frank, a property developer who also ran an underground fighting ring, and Frank himself collaborated with the corrupt cops. Sang was a former student of Master Tin but was generally not a very proficient martial artist. Instead he used money to gather troops.
Frank wanted the primary school for his own development projects. Sang used cartoonishly evil tactics to intimidate the principal into selling. First he approached the school and caused a ruckus and assaulted the principal. Then he boarded up the school and set it on fire. Then he kidnapped kids.
In the end, Ip Man defeated him and his goons and the police came to arrest him.
Bruce Lee
The reason why people know of Ip Man was because he was Bruce Lee’s teacher. In actuality, he was only Bruce Lee’s teacher for a very short time and it’s arguable whether Ip Man even personally taught him.
In this cinematic series, Ip Man was portrayed as having a constant correspondence with Bruce Lee who really wanted to be his student. Bruce Lee was generally portrayed as a cocky guy. Cocky, but outgoing. I don’t know how I feel about this portrayal. Better than the one in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood though.
Themes
While previous movies emphasized using martial arts in the name of patriotism, this movie emphasized using martial arts in the name of protecting the loved ones around you. It didn’t matter what was true Wing Chun, all that mattered was that it came from a want to protect.
Overall
Ok movie. Watch it for the action of course. We don’t get a lot of martial arts movies nowadays that don’t use tons of close-up editing to hide the fact that actors can’t fight. So we have to support martial arts movies with actual trained martial artists!
Spoilers.
Story
The first story line was about thugs trying to get the local primary school principal to sell the school so that they could have the land. Ip Man and company fought them off.
A second story line was about the relationship between Ip Man and his wife Wing-sing. Since Ip Man was busy protecting the neighbourhood, he didn’t have as much time for his wife and family. He’d be late picking up Ip Ching from school, he’d forget about the dance class they signed up together for, etc. Later on, Wing-sing found out she had a tumour.
The third story line was about Cheung Tin-chi, an up-and-comer who wanted to challenge Ip Man. He originally worked for the thugs to get money to start his own martial arts school. Then he went around challenging other masters for notoriety. He finally challenged Ip Man, though on the day of, Ip Man had planned a dance class with his wife and so he did not attend. Ip Man spent several days with Wing-sing in the hospital, but Wing-sing arranged another duel between the two.
Of course, our protagonist Ip Man won in the end, though Tin-chi did not die. Ip Man simply emphasized that they did not fight for the glory of Wing Chun. Rather, they only ever fought to protect their loved ones.
The story was whatever. It was generic enough and it kind of lost itself along the way because the major story line was generally the thugs, but somehow streamlined into Tin-chi’s challenge.
As well, the story really hit people on the head with the morality themes, about how they were all fighting to protect the kids. The villains were cartoonishly evil. I felt like I was being lectured by our protagonists which got kind of annoying.
I was looking stuff up about Ip Man’s life and I think at this point the movie took lots of creative liberties to show Ip Man in a better light. So I think this movie series is more like the Ip Man cinematic universe than an actual attempt to recount history.
Production
Of course the fighting was the star here. I feel like Donnie Yen is more upright in posture. I know Wing Chun is more about keeping posture. But in comparison, I felt that Zhang Jin was more dynamic in his fighting, his fighting had more life injected into it.
The inclusion of the Thai fighter and Mike Tyson were add-ons that didn’t really affect the story too much but I actually enjoyed that. It introduced something a bit different from the first two instalments. The first two instalments had a more serious story. While the story in Ip Man 3 was serious, it wasn’t so deep and it was honestly cartoonish at times. So to make up for that, the inclusion of different fighting styles did keep me engaged.
The acting was whatever. The best acting came from Kent Cheng in my opinion, but we knew he was a great actor. A lot of the other actors had some voice acting dubbing going on that made their deliveries more wooden.
Characters
Ip Man
Our main character. The entire neighbourhood loved him, and he loved them back, but his love was stretched thin so that his wife (and son) sometimes came second. After Wing-sing revealed her diagnosis, Ip Man understood that he’d been neglecting his family and put aside his practice to take care of her. And in the end he relayed that message to Tin-chi.
Cheung Wing-sing
Wing-sing was Ip Man’s wife and a representation of his family life. She was annoyed that he was away so much taking care of the neighbourhood. She understood why he did it but she was still annoyed.
She grew weaker right before Ip Man’s eyes and he didn’t even realize until she broke down in front of him. As she grew more frail, Ip Man took care of her more. At one point she told him that she thought he took good are of her already, which I thought was a little bullshit considering how neglected she felt before. But I think it was more that she was coming to accept what her husband was.
Wing-sing said that she missed the sounds of him practising Wing Chun and so he practised a bit for her. She understood that her husband was Wing Chun and that it would be hard to separate him from it.
Cheung Tin-chi
Tin-chi was also a Wing Chun martial artist. He was a rickshaw driver, but he had plans on becoming a great master.
He first saved some money by doing jobs for the thugs. Then he used that money to rent a space for his martial arts school. He also used that money to get the reporter to do some stories on him beating other local martial arts masters and that was how his practice grew.
Tin-chi finally challenged Ip Man to a battle, claiming that Ip Man’s Wing Chun was not traditional. Ip Man didn’t really take the challenge seriously, and on the intended day, he’d planned a dance class with his wife because he’d missed one before. While Wing-sing was in hospital, she wrote a letter to plan another duel for Ip Man and Tin-chi.
They fought, and Ip Man won. But Ip Man did not care whether his martial art was traditional or not. He enforced that all martial arts was good for was protecting one’s family and friends.
Ma King-sang
Sang was a local thug. Sang reported to Frank, a property developer who also ran an underground fighting ring, and Frank himself collaborated with the corrupt cops. Sang was a former student of Master Tin but was generally not a very proficient martial artist. Instead he used money to gather troops.
Frank wanted the primary school for his own development projects. Sang used cartoonishly evil tactics to intimidate the principal into selling. First he approached the school and caused a ruckus and assaulted the principal. Then he boarded up the school and set it on fire. Then he kidnapped kids.
In the end, Ip Man defeated him and his goons and the police came to arrest him.
Bruce Lee
The reason why people know of Ip Man was because he was Bruce Lee’s teacher. In actuality, he was only Bruce Lee’s teacher for a very short time and it’s arguable whether Ip Man even personally taught him.
In this cinematic series, Ip Man was portrayed as having a constant correspondence with Bruce Lee who really wanted to be his student. Bruce Lee was generally portrayed as a cocky guy. Cocky, but outgoing. I don’t know how I feel about this portrayal. Better than the one in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood though.
Themes
While previous movies emphasized using martial arts in the name of patriotism, this movie emphasized using martial arts in the name of protecting the loved ones around you. It didn’t matter what was true Wing Chun, all that mattered was that it came from a want to protect.
Overall
Ok movie. Watch it for the action of course. We don’t get a lot of martial arts movies nowadays that don’t use tons of close-up editing to hide the fact that actors can’t fight. So we have to support martial arts movies with actual trained martial artists!