The Legend is Born: Ip Man

The Legend is Born: Ip Man

Posted On: November 13, 2010
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★★★

Director: Herman Yau
Year: 2010

Here’s the last of the trilogy, although I’m not sure if you could really call it a trilogy since this film looks like it came out just to capture the box office success of the previous two. Not to mention it’s a prequel. And I don’t really know much in terms of the making of the film nor time to box office.

Anyway, this prequel takes place as Ip Man first learns Wing Chun and follows him in his schooling plus how he met his wife.  It’s this romantic aspect that is absolutely the best part of this film. It’s done really well and casted very well.

However, I wished they would have spent more time on the casting. What threw me for a loop is their choice of using the master from Ip Man 2 to play the master in this film. The reason for my frustration and confusion is these two individuals are not supposed to be related, not to mention they’re about 30 years apart in the story.  So I have no idea why they did that.  Plus, I really hated the fact that at the end, when we do see Ip Man grown up and as a man, they didn’t Donnie Yen do a cameo just to hold the trilogy together, that was a huge disconnect.

Anyway, I liked the story as I mentioned, plus I really liked the plot twist near the end of the film, I thought it was clever and definitely unexpected. The fighting sequences aren’t as great as the previous Ip Man’s, but I think it’s due to Donnie Yen being a better action star. But I did enjoy it, and I definitely liked the story better than Ip Man 2, because of the romance/courting process.  Hey, if you’ve already seen the other two, you know you’ll watch this as well.

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