Fantasia 09 Review:Everybody Wing Chun Tonight With ‘Ip Man’

Ip Man (PG-13) 108 min. Directed by: Wilson Yip. Written by: Edmond Wong. Starring: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Sui Wong Fan, Ka Tung Lam, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi. Cinematography: Sing-Pui. Original Music by: Kenji Kawai

 

Wilson Yip’s Ip Man, the semi-biographical film based off the life of Bruce Lee’s old teacher, was one of the films that opened the FantAsia Film Festival this past Thursday. And considering that the fest debuted in 96 with a lineup made up primarily of Hong Kong martial arts pictures, its quite fitting that 13 years later it should have the honor of showcasing one of the finest recent examples of the genre. Originally competing with a similar themed project proposed by Wong Kar Wai (2046, Ashes of Time),  action director Wilson Yip and his star, Donnie Yen, have crafted a less than accurate but consistently entertaining and emotionally stirring drama that pays tribute to the life of Yip Man, the first martial arts master in China to openly teach Wing Chun.

Rearranging some events and completely fabricating others, Ip Man is notable not for its fidelity to the real Yip Man, but for its amazing utilization of Donnie Yen, the underrated Hong Kong action hero whose moves and style are as compelling as his more famous compatriots, Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Despite the fact he is  less well known here in the States(although he grew up in Boston), Yen is a more natural actor than the others and this quality elevates Ip Man from a formulaic epic to a rousing adventure with sufficient dramatic identity for the central role.  Yen has been working as an actor, choreographer and director for more than 2 decades, and while his American roles are either very small (Blade II) or ridiculous (Highlander: End Game) he is well respected among the fans of martial arts action pictures. Alas, the general public, at best, might recognize him as the guy Jet Li killed at the beginning of Hero. When he appeared on screen here, my wife snidely remarked “Oh look, it’s Chinese Lou Diamond Philips.” Arrgh. If Ip Man can find the same kind of international cross-over appeal as fellow countryman Jet Li’s Fearless did, then I suspect Yen might have a break-out hit on his hands. 

 Opening in the mid 1930’s in the district of Foshan–at the time a flourishing epicenter of Chinese martial artistry–the early sections of Ip Man follow the lives of independently wealthy men, like Master Yip, who have focused their stores of free time into the creation of fighting clubs where various schools and practitioners face off against each other in public duels. A quiet and humble man, posessing great skill and more restraint than his  colleagues, Ip is respected and admired among his friends and the community. He isn’t a professional martial artist, but his profiency in Wing Chun and his willingness to provide private sparring lessons with other local masters have made him an integral part of the Foshan hub.  Among the men who surround Ip, Simon Yam’s businessman,  Zhou Qingquan, is his closest and most faithful friend.

All others mostly amount to admirers, who crowd around Ip’s courtyard begging for instruction until they are inevitably chased away by Ip’s wife, who cautions him that he’s spending too much time on the martial arts and too little with his son. In a lesser drama this would be a primary plotline, but Ip recognizes the truth in his wife’s words and later, in a humorous scene, he continually denies battle in his home with a Northern braggart, Jin Shanzhao, until finally his wife urges him onward with the single caveat “Don’t break anything.”

This fight, like many in the film’s first half, is exciting, inventive and appropriately close-quarters; the predominant feature of Wing Chun. There are a few stylistic conventions observed, like an occasional slow-down or speed-up to add exaggerated impact to the hits as they connect, but by and large the action is clear and well choreographed. Yen embodies the moral and emotional values of the young master in the way he conducts himself in battle. Each kick, each body movement is carefully designed to evoke both the character of Ip  and the larger essence of Wing Chun as a discipline. There is a carefree sensibility to these early sectons that carries through to the combat scenes,making them lighter and more exuberant than the bone-crushing violence of American martial arts pictures. There is little consequence in these skirmishes; occassionally a combatant will be hurt or bruised, but even the wreckless Shanzhao never kills anyone.

And then, the film moves forward in time to the middle of the Second Sino-Japanese War, where Japanese forces have occupied the town of Foshan and what we find as viewers is a very different place; poverty reigns, all fighting clubs have been closed due to dwindling resources, and once prosperous men like Ip are relegated to working grunt labor in order to feed their families. Ruling militarily over this particular district is the stern, battle-hungry General Miura, who is more or less the snarling Japanese tyrant we might expect in a film delivered from the Chinese perspective. Thankfully, the Japanese actor portraying Miura manages to imbue him with flashes of real character, including a sense of honor that trumps and holds in check his own proud desires–when his men prematurely pull weapons or brutalize without cause, he quickly and decisively chastises them. Still, this doesn’t make him a hero, and the script is likely in violation of making the man a monster without much consultation of ‘fact’. Were he given just a few more layers it would balance the movie more, which plays so much like a Charles Dickens tale that the rest of the story has a far more British sensibility than a Chinese one. It’s an odd trait to include, but it goes a long way to making Ip Man work as a drama about a man’s struggle to impact his community instead of merely a string of awesome fight scenes.

The real Yip was not a wealthy man of leisure, but a policeman in Foshan, and during the occupation,  he and his family eventually left the area.  In the film’s version of events, Miura and some other officers reinstate a fight club and pay starving ex-masters in rice to compete against one another. When one of Ip’s friends is killed by Miura, who likes to compete himself, Ip shows up and takes on several of the Japanese fighters at once. He is fighting, for the first time since we have seen him, out of vengeance and the sequence is a bravura action piece; allowing us to take in every broken arm and observe how each punch is planned and placed to break a rib or disable a kneecap. There is a fearsome focus to it, and Yen musters the same discipline but his quiet, serene facade is ebbing away into a snarling fusion of anger and determination.

Later, when Ip encounters his old friend Zhang, and learns that the master-turned-thief Shanzao has been raiding the man’s business and brutalizing the workforce, he is reluctantly enlisted by the mill owner to train the blue-collar caste in the ways of Wing Chun. And then, the legend of Ip Man is born, culminating, as anyone who has ever seen a movie can guess, with an arranged, symbolic battle between Miura and Ip, and the phrase “to-the-death” enters our mind even if the film never says it.

As I have already mentioned, it is clear the movie isn’t aiming for the ‘true story’ of Ip Man, but in a way I’m disappointed we didn’t get a more faithful version. After the war, Ip relocated to Hong Kong where he opened  a school dedicated to the practice of Wing Chun and before his death in 1974, he had mentored several influential people, including Bruce Lee. As I write this, Yip andYen are in the process of putting together an Ip Man sequel that will tell that story. I hope that after getting the nationalistic and melodramatic ‘legend’ aspects of the man’s legacy out of the way we can get a more centered and realistic portrayal. However, it must be said that when we go to films like this one, realism isn’t always an ally. Ip Man is probably more entertaining because of the modifications. 

If the film is so off on the details why have I given it such high marks? Because as a movie, it works completely and as a showcase for the skills and charm of Donnie Yen it has no equal. Yen is less flamboyant than Bruce, less of a showboat than Chan, and not as dexterious as Li but he has a sense of presence and focus that was never really present in any of them. It allows him to hone in on a moment and give it definition and distinction. There is a greater emotional involvement in the fight scenes of Ip Man, and Yen is well up to the task of showing that underneath this skilled warrior is an artist who has found a way for his art to impact the society around him.

In addition, Yip is a gifted director that steps back from the more haphazard action antics of his previous films, Dragon Tiger Gate and Flashpoint, to assemble a drama whose pacing hearkens back to Old Hollywood pictures. He is a natural when it comes to arranging action scenes and staging hand to hand combat that the viewer can almost physically feel. What is surprising though is how well he manages the quieter moments between Ip and his family, and the way in which he captures a universal image of impoverished workers facing the difficult truths that hunger and need are fracturing a once connected community. The visual look of the film is exquisite, depicting the lush opulence before the war, and etching a hard, grim contour of broken buildings and haggard bodies during the occupation. Genre hounds circling FantAsia came looking for a kick-in-the-face Donnie Yen opus, but the well-rounded Ip Man offers all of those elements while providing something its viewers didn’t even know they wanted: substance.