Ip Man (film)

Synopsis: Ip Man is a semi-autobiographical look at Ip Man, the grand master of the Wing Chun kung fu style, and his life under the Japanese occupation of China.

Ip Man is somewhere between a good film and a great film, depending on how deeply your willing to read into it. It seems propagandistic, even for a film coming out of China these days, but I think that might be part of the point.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. On the most basic level, Ip Man, is a fun movie. The kung fu might be some of the best I've ever seen. Donnie Yen (who plays Ip Man) does things that I just simply haven't really seen in a Kung Fu film. His movement is truly a sight to behold. His moves are so elegant, yet so fast and brutal. If you look at kung fu movies like the dances they really are, this is some spectacular choreography mixed with moment that almost doesn't seem human .

It is also well shot. The first part of the story is bright and beautiful with varied settings in a city that really seems alive. When things go to hell, the atmosphere feels very genuine of a war torn city and the visuals take a beautiful and darker turn. It really does a good job of creating two setting that are the same but also very different. Even the fights change. In the first half the fights are all in good fun and the violence seems bright and consequence free. Later the violence seems very real and fighting actually results in blood, broken limbs and death.

The acting gets the job done I suppose but I didn't really notice it. It never seems bad or anything but it wasn't elevating the material or anything. On that note, the writing is nothing special either. The dialogue mostly serves to push the plot forward and not much else. Once again it's not bad and it exceeds the low standard I have for writing in Kung Fu movies, but it really just takes a back seat to the fighting. I should note I don't really have a problem with that.

The story itself is pretty standard, but not entirely standard for the genre. In my Rango review I talked about how most modern westerns tend to be about the death of the western. This movie is kind of about the death of the Kung Fu movie. The movie starts out very standard for the genre. There are a bunch of Kung Fu schools and there are people challenging others to prove that their kung fu is better. That is literally all the first part of the film really is. Then war breaks out and China is occupied. Kung Fu is no longer important, and in fact it seems silly in this new world. This isn't to say the movie isn't still very much a Kung Fu movie after the change (the plot still involves fighting to the usual convoluted degree) but it shows the transition from a world where kung fu is everything, to one where it's antiquated and frivolous.

In the movie kung fu isn't just kung fu, it is the traditional Chinese way of life and it is being crushed. More specifically it's being crushed by the Japanese. On the surface it seems like pure propaganda. This really isn't even that unusual for the genre. Most movies can't even get made in China if they are seen as being subversive in any way. As a result of this propaganda in kung fu movies isn't that unusual. For example, while Hero is one of my favorite kung fu movies but the message of the film is pretty much "totalitarianism is good". Going back to Ip Man, the Japanese are portrayed as cartoonishly evil. The main villain seems straight out of a fighting game and his main subordinate looks like a caricature straight out of World War II propaganda. The Chinese for the most part are good and pure and are only evil when they work with the Japanese or work against their fellow countrymen. It honestly gets a little grating and the directness of the writing doesn't help. This is a film where characters seem to directly state the point to the audience. I pretty much took it all as pure propaganda for most of the movie and barely tolerated it. The movie was well made but it was getting a little to heavy handed in many places. My view changed when this was said by Ip Man towards the end (bear with me here because this is where I get weird):

Although martial arts involve armed forces, Chinese Martial arts is Confucius in spirit. The virtue of Martial Arts is benevolence. You Japanese will never understand the principle of treating others as you would yourself because you abuse military power. You turn it into violence and oppress others. You don't deserve to learn Chinese Martial arts."

Is it just me, or could you replace "Japanese" with "People's republic of China" pretty easily in that quote. Are you honestly going to tell me that someone could be so unself-aware that they would put this in without realizing how well it applies to the current state of their own country? I have a really hard time buying that. In this movie the Japanese represent the People's republic of China. It's the perfect crime. Who would use the Japanese of all people to represent the Chinese? What government censor would see this and suspect it? It just works so well and makes so much more sense than what the movie presents to us.

I mean, while the Japanese occupation was horrible, it did not lead to the death of the traditional Chinese culture. This is not what this movie tells you. In this film traditional Chinese culture is thriving and then the antagonist comes and crushes it. Historically the group that would fit that description would probably be the People's Republic.

It just all works so well. Take the main villain. The main villain is a man who claims to respect the Chinese and their culture but represses them and tries to just use that culture to further his own agenda. The sub-villain doesn't even pretend to care about these things and thinks fear tactics will do just fine. The factories in the film are allowed to thrive but are left unprotected by the powers from foreigners that want to exploit the workers. There is constant pressure on one character to inform on his fellow country men. There is a character who dies that could have been easily spared if he just stayed down and shut up but after his refusal and example is made of him. It all just fits so perfectly. Not a scene in the film I can think of goes against this reading.

There's no way I can ever confirm if it was deliberate but part of me refuses to believe I'm not right. This is one of the most subversive films to come out of Japan in a long time and the brilliance of it is that it's disguised as a propaganda film about a beloved Chinese martial artist. It's just too perfect and I'd much rather live in the world where I'm right about this.

7/10 if you don't buy my interpretation.
9.5/10 if you do.