Donnie Yen's Combat Skills Enliven Ip Man 2

Well Go USA/Variance Films

Yen, right, brings the pain in Ip Man 2.

Details

Ip Man 2: Legend of the Grandmaster
Directed by Wilson Yip
Variance Films
Opens January 28, Village East

Related Content

• Dragon (Wu xia)
  November 28, 2012
• COPS AS ROBBERS
  July 4, 2012
• 2012's New York Asian Film Festival: A Pop Explosion
  June 27, 2012
• All's Well, Ends Well
  January 25, 2012
• Fist Bump: The Return of Chen Zen Struggles to Live Up to Its Pedigree
  April 20, 2011

More About

• Donnie Yen
• Ip Man 2
• Rocky IV
• Martial Arts

The famed titular Wing Chun martial arts master returns to protect Chinese honor in Ip Man 2, a redundant if nonetheless occasionally thrilling follow-up bolstered by star Donnie Yen’s precision combat skills. Having relocated to Hong Kong in the early 1950s, Ip establishes a new school but finds himself confronting old dilemmas: scant money to support his family, impulsive students, and competitors who scoff at his unimposing modesty. Director Wilson Yip’s tale holds nothing back, with its initial hand-to-hand clashes proving to be its finest, from Ip taking on a marketplace’s worth of blade-wielding baddies to him squaring off against kung fu masters atop a small table surrounded by upturned chairs. It’s during this latter battle that Yen spars with the legendary Sammo Hung (who also serves as fight choreographer), a meeting of two martial arts maestros that serves as the action’s apex. From there, alas, sequelitis sets in, with Ip again forced to set a shining nationalist example by defeating a xenophobic foreign enemy (in this case, an English boxer). Still, at least derivation corresponds with the film’s overriding theme, as Ip’s stated goal of proving that East and West are equal is covertly expressed by this Chinese blockbuster’s naked second-half aping of Rocky IV.