Movie Review: Ip Man
This movie tells the story about the life of Yip Man (Ip Man) during the Japanese occupation of China. Yip Man is an actual person who lived between 1893-1972. He’s the legendary name in Wing Chun martial arts. It’s said that Bruce Lee was once his student. Ip Man is a biographical motion picture (biopic) about him.
The story takes place in a city of Foshan where Yip Man lived. Foshan was very famous as the center of excellence of chinese martial arts. Yip Man was very popular for his kung fu skills in the city. Many believed that nobody can claim to be the best before beating Yip Man in martial arts skills.
From here the story really goes well. The movie shows very good martial arts fight. Sometimes combined with fresh humors. The movie isn’t trying to be excessive in fighting scene so the story was kept intact. The flaws start to arise when Japanese troops come to the story.
People seem to forget about how famous Foshan for being the best there is in martial arts skills. Especially about Yip Man who once showed many people how easily he disarmerd a pistol in the hand of a police inspector. Japan conquered Foshan almost without any resistance at all. Very strange it happened in a place where people claimed to be the best place in fighting skills.
Yip Man lived as a cheap labour under Japanese emperor. That’s when people from his workplace, mostly were martial arts students, realize that the most famous name in kung fu has been becoming a “slave”. It’s quite strange actually. They were all coming together to where Yip Man lived only to watch a kung fu match before Japan came. Wasn’t he the one that they have to discuss with once the news about Japan invasion came up. Actually how big was the city of Foshan at that time.
Yip Man is a patriotic man. That’s what this movie also tries to tell us. He refused to teach Wing Chun martial arts to Japanese troops. Instead, Japanese general challenged him to fight in a fair fighting match held at the open arena in the middle of the city. No need to guess, I believe we all know who’s gonna be the winner.
Being a patriotic as how it’s described in this movie makes me quite wondering. There were countless lives who sacrificed themselves to fight against the colonialists in my country. They even fought only using a sharp bamboo against machine gun. That’s what I used to call the real patriotic people. Perhaps now I know how term patriotic is applied in another country.
Anyway, to be honest the reason I watched this movie was actually to enjoy a very good fighting sequence. There are admittedly some good fighting scenes in this movie. Sammo Hung was hired as an action director. He’s done a realy good job, it has to be said.
I really like the performance of Donnie Yen who played Yip Man. He really shows his charisma as the legendary IP Man. But I was quite surprised to see Simon Yam again. I still remember how he looked in the 80’s-90’s movie. Now he looks much much older. I guess we’ll have to cope with the fact that we are all growing older. Just like the legendary Yip Man (IP Man) who eventually died in 1972 due to throat cancer.
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Title : Ip Man
Director : Wilson Yip
Cast : Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Siu-Won Fan, Ka Tung Lam, Yu Xing, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Chen Zhi Hui
Genre : action/drama/biopic
My Rating : 2.5 out of 5
Pics taken from the official site of IP Man.
Ada beberapa komen nih:
1. Judulnya koq IP Man bukan Ip Man. Kesannya film superhero nih. akronim apaan tuh IP? Indeks Prestasi? Internet Protokol?
O iya Foshan (Fujian) itu ngetop banget jaman dulu (katanya). Wong Fei Hung sendiri kalo memperkenalkan diri selalu bilang Wong Fei Hung dari Foshan.
2. Simon Yam? inget film Hongkong Gigolo nih
Tapi emang Simon Yam aktor kelas atas, apa aja dilakonin. Jadi pendekar (film silat seri Golok pembunuh naga, jadi bokapnya Thio Buki), gigolo, polisi bejat, polisi baek, gangster, jagoan, bencong, orang gila, terakhir gue liat dia jadi copet di film Swallow (nonton tuh pren, film bagus)
3. Patriotisme bisa dijabarkan sampai beberapa macem konteks. Dari pake bambu runcing, nggak mau bantu negara musuh, sampai rasa membuncah didalam dada ketika nyanyi lagu Indonesia Raya. Bingung deh kalo udah ngomongin masalah beginian. skip aja, okey?
4. Kalo liat nama Donnie Yen dan Sammo Hung, gue kudu nonton. Jaminan mutu nih buat penggila film silat. ada rekomendasi buat nyari di internet?
5. terakhir. Emang Yip Man orang pertama yg ngajarin Wing chun secara terbuka. Dari dulu wing chun cuma diajarin tertutup buat keluarga atau teman dekat. Teknik latihan Wing Chun yang paling ngetop adalah latihan pake boneka kayu (inget Rumble in Bronx -nya Jackie Chan?)
hehehe ok men gue reply di bwh :
Sayangnya gue ngga tau nih pren hehehe
1. hehe iya salah nulis gue. Dan salah baca juga
2. nah itu dia pren. Salah satunya maen bareng ama veronica yip ya kalo ga salah. Eh, veronica yip apa veronica lau ya, lupa gue nama belakangnya
3. hehe ok pren. Gue ngrasa heran aja sih ngeliatnya. Masak iya bangsa kita termasuk sedikit bangsa yg bener2x bertempur nglawan para penjajah. Pengetahuan sejarah gue ancur ya
4. Huehehe dasar, ujung2xnya nyari gretongan. Tp gpp ding
5. inget men, yg ngakunya setting cerita di bronx tp org sono ktnya dgn gampang identify ini mah kanada bukan bronx ya hehe
if it’s donnie yen, I must see.. although sometimes he acts in some movies that I don’t like because he didn’t show many of his cool martial arts, I believe this one is a good one
btw have you seen flashpoint? It is really really cool donnie yen’s movie
not yet mas Jimmy. But I’ll watch it if I found the DVD’s for that movie
kayaknya ok neh…bakal nonton aahhh
inggris banyak banget yak jajahannya
tapi pd makmur ya jajahannya. gak kayak belanda siyalan itu
ternyata penggemar gedebak-gedebuk ya elo
As usual, good moview review
thx jek
gue consider pelem hantu-hantu china aja ahhh yang kudu nutup hidung dulu supaya ga digangguin hantunya
*soalnya klo nonton pelem penjajah suka jadi pegel sendiri gue nya hihihihi*
huehehe wah dulu sering nongton itu di tipih. Yg maen si pak tua yg biasa jadi gurunya itu yah
Sudah lama juga gak ngelihat aktingnya Donnie Yuen…
Simon Yam ? he..he…*sepakat ama Pak Yusahrizal, nih*..Berkesan banget waktu dia maen jadi gigolo…ampe sekarang kalo inget dia..inget ama perannya itu.
Sammo Hung…beliau ini udah berumur bukan, ya ?
Artis2 China ini..makin tua makin berminyak aja, ya…?
Salut dah !!
wah hebat Putri sampe tau kalo Simon Yam pernah maen pilem gigolo
Ayo Put, yg ini ditonton aja kalo emang pengen nonton si donnie lagi 
Your review is full of bias opinions and a lack of understanding of Chinese history and also the movie. There are full of flaws in your synopsis, please re-watch the movie before you comment/review it because obviously you did not understand half of what was going on. Learning some Chinese history would help as well, specifically the second Sino-Japanese war.
My review of your review 1/10 that’s how bad your review is. Please re-write.
Hello TheDude, thx a lot for your visit and comments. I really appreciate it. Yes, I agree that chinese history MUST be a lot better and bigger than just what we can see in this movie. Perhaps it’ll need a much bigger movie to portray the real legendary life of Yip Man so every other aspects can be covered. I understand also about your point of view about my understanding about how the movie tells the story. I can only suspect that the subtitle ruin it. It’s very nice to have your comment here. But sorry I can’t re-write it no matter how bad or good other people think the review is. Perhaps it’d be more informative to the reader if you can put your review link (from your website/blog maybe?) in here so the reader can read different kind of opinions about the movie. Personally I always love many differences in how people interpretate all kind of movies. Your opinions (not only for this movie but for any other thing) are very much welcome here. Thx again TheDude!
Unfortunately I do not have a website that contains reviews but I will write a mini one here and point out some errors in your review:
- Ip Man did teach bruce lee wing chun it is no rumour or myth, it is a known fact.
- Is it really hard to believe Foshan was taken over by Japan? For one thing, there were 1000s of Japanese with Guns and Rifles, realistically it was impossible for men with no guns whatsoever to win. Did you really expect them to kung-fu the Japanese soldiers out of China? With regards to the Foshan people not resisting.. you could not of known this because the movie went straight to the occupation of Foshan and did not show how Japan took control over Foshan. With that said, I’m not sure how you find the Japanese occupation strange or flawed.
- Ip man was not a “slave” he worked for money and food. When did slaves get money for the work they do? I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to say in this paragraph either.. you went from slave work to fighting at Ip mans house then to the japanese war. What are you trying to say and what is so strange?
- Ip Man refused to teach Japanese soldiers but what you missed is, Ip man was the one who challenged the Japanese general to a fight and not the general.
-A Movie does not represent an entire country, what kind of thinking is that..? Generalizing an entire country and how they define patriotism because of one movie is extremely ignorant, so please don’t. Your comment about men with bamboo sticks fighting people with machine guns is considered more patriotic is too simple-minded. Just because they did not waste their lives by fighting the Japanese with bamboo sticks does not mean they are any less patriotic than the people who did. Live to fight another day? ever heard of this?
You may have misinterpreted the movie because of subtitles but I hope I cleared some things up for you.
The movie itself had great fighting scenes and had somewhat of a plot but it’s main focus was fighting and a really simple bio of ip man. The costumes and environment setting was great. . I would recommend this movie to people who want to watch some good action and to have a glimpse of what Wing Chun martial arts is. I rate this movie 6.5/10.
Hello TheDude, how are you. Thx for sharing your opinion. I really like this kind of discussion
It’s obvious that you know much more of Chinese history than me. I admit that what I know about chinese history is mostly from movie. Just like this one. Anyway, I’ll re-comment one by one below.
- Yes, I know that Bruce Lee was once Yip Man student from this movie. And I put that in my 1st paragraph.
- No and yes
No, it’s not hard to believe Foshan were taken over by Japan. And I don’t mind about winning either. My country which consist of 17 thousands islands were occupied by colonialists for 350 years. So many resistance in all regions but still we couldn’t beat them. Simply because of the uncomparable guns and armory (maybe just like in China during Japan occupation?) so I didn’t mind at all about winning actually. This will relate to my “yes” answer next. Yes, you’re absolutely right. We share the same opinion on this. This movie didn’t try to describe how people in Foshan react towards Japan attack, which I believe should’ve been there even for a little bit (just some seconds scenes will do, even in slo-mo). Because I think that will be the strong base on the upcomings story plot when Japan are already there. The story plot is switching too fast. I felt like the moviemakers were such in a hurry. So what I said about the flaws were not the fact that Japan taking over Foshan. It’s not that at all. But on how this movie tells the story about it. The duration of this movie is not that long. So I’m sure adding some additional scenes about how Japan did it in Foshan would be very interesting.
- hehe yes I get your point. First of all, I put the word slave as “slave”. Only to put some drastic impression on how a very famous person in Foshan could become a cheap labour which can happen if you’re living under colonialists. And word cheap labour was the one I used as the real description in that paragraph. Now about that paragraph, actually what I tried to question is how can people there just realized that Yip Man, very famous name in Foshan, had became a cheap labour so late. Because it seems that they all know where he lived and even walking together to his house before Japan occupation only to watch a fighting match. From that point until when people met Yip Man working as a cheap labour, it seems that nobody cared about him anymore. That’s how my question arised, wasn’t he the one that people normally talk to (besides the police maybe because they do have guns) about Japan invasion before or during the invasion? Actually how big were Foshan at that time so people seemed forgetting him? This relates with my previous recomment that I belive this movie should have a certain scenes describing the period from before Japan invasion and during they did it. Not just stepping that missing period. This will add some very interesting story plot building towards the era when Japan already there in Foshan. But to be honest I’m not sure if the moviemakers indeed made this movie for Chinese audiences only (they’ve already known the actual history) so they decided to skip that part.
- well, thx for your information. But as far as I remember Yip Man challenged the general to fight in the room (anyway, was that karate?). It was the general who challenged Yip Man to fight in the open arena right bang in the middle of the city. Do I remember correctly? perhaps you can correct me if I don’t
- yes, I get your point on this. I believe this also related to some points that I wrote above, that this movie somehow lack the willing to show how Foshan people reacted towards Japan invasion (before and during, not after). My criticism was actually not directed towards the actual people or country but only to the movie (it’s a movie review, not a historical review
). That missing period that led me thinking that the movie makers could make this movie has more patriotic spirit in it. It has the potential. Too bad they didn’t do it. I’m not sure maybe they want this to be more entertaining than explaining. But I believe it’s not really wasting their money if they decide to add some scenes containing even only emotional response from Foshan people (maybe along with Yip Man) when Japan attack the region. About live to fight for another day? Yes, I agree with you 
- I 100% agree with your last paragraph. This movie has a very good fighting scenes. And it focused more on that than the historical information. Maybe my expectation was too much after the Japan occupation scenes. But I think we share similar conclusion here, that if you really want to watch a good martial arts movie, then this one is definitely for you
Again, thx for visiting again and give some very interesting comments TheDude! It’s very nice to have you here
Sori deh kalo gue komen pake bhs lokal. gak ada waktu buat nulis debat2an kayak diatas. Barusan nonton dan komen gue:
1. gue pernah baca biografi ttg Yip Man, anak pengusaha terkaya dikotanya yang berprofesi sbg polisi. Tadinya gue heran, koq pekerjaannya sbg polisi dihilangkan dr skenario, kan bisa bikin cerita lbh menarik tuh. Tp gue maklum ini bukan film sejarah, tp film silat. jdnya gak terlalu dipikirin serius deh.
2. Salah kasting buat beberapa pemain pendukung. Simon Yam mainnya biasa banget buat aktor sekelas dia. Akting istri Yip Man kayak artis sinetron.
Yang paling parah justru si jendral. Itu orang liat tampangnya aja paling baru umuran 30 tahunan, kalau udah jadi jendral, paling jadi jendral amatiran doank. Gue jadi heran, kalo yang mimpin perang cuma jendral bau kencur koq bisa2nya jepang menang perang lawan tiongkok? Kenapa sih nggak milih aktor senior jepang yg jg ahli beladiri. Banyak pilihan koq aktor tua dari yg paling ngetop kayak Sonny Chiba sampai yg bisa ngomong cina kayak Yasuaki Kurata.
3. Kasting dan akting lumayan bagus justru buat tokoh rada antagonis kayak si pendekar dari utara yg petantang petenteng, juga si polisi yg pindah kerja jd penerjemah. kelebihan lainnya memang setting designer, sinematografi, dan kamera jg bagus. soal adegan laga, the second best Sammo Hung’s fight choreography after SPL.
4. jadi berharap, katanya wong kar-wai mau bikin film biografi (asli drama) dgn tony leung jadi yip man. kalo beneran dibikin gue mau nonton deh.
5. kali ini rating gue lebih gede dikiiiittttt 2.75/5 (sama temen boleh nawar dong, jangan pelit)
hehehe pake bahasa apa aja silakan bro. Pake bahasa planet pun boleh
1. oh pantesan. Gue jg sempet mikir ini dia kaya raya begitu dpt hasil drmana. Rasanya ga mgkin dr keahliannya di kung fu. Apalagi dia ga mau ngangkat murid.
2. hehehe gue malah inget sinetron pas ngeliat tampang jendralnya pren. Rasanya ini tampang2x yg laku kalo di sinetron
3. eh btw, kalo ga salah gue baca pemeran di polisi yg akhirnya jd translator itu anaknya Yip Man ya. Lupa gue baca dimana (kalo salah koreksi deh hehe). Nah adegan si pendekar blagu itu menurut gue bagian terbaik dr pilem ini. Pokoknya sbelum jepang masuk deh hueheheh
Eh SPL itu singkatan apa sih pren…
4. ho’oh, kabarnya so far ada 2 project pilem tentang Yip Man. Yg satu lagi mgkin (dan smoga) lebih digarap bagus.
5. gimana kalo 2.74 pren. Dikit kan gue nawarnya
Itu film udah lama banget…Semasa SMA awal kalo gak salah…Maklum zaman2 Boomingnya film Mandarin
oh Putri pernah nongton pilem tentang Yip Man juga ya pas jaman SMA. Gue baru ini sih kyknya
NB.
The one who challange to fight is the translator
Both of the general or ip man never said the word of challange.
Ip man only said he didn’t want to train the soldier but he would fight if he forced, but the translator said to the general that ip man want to spar with him personaly. the general agreed then arrange the spar in front of crowded peoples. blame the translator…..
@putri. jaman SMA? walah, ibu putri rupanya senior saya nih. booming pilem mandarin mah pas jaman sayah smp tuh.
do you mean the police who became the translator? well, I’m not sure but maybe you’re right. I don’t know why he did it though
Bukan film Ip Mannya..tapi filmnya SImon YAm …
[maaf, jadi salah paham, nih, mas]
@yusahrizal…
hm..kalo gak salah mo deket2 ke SMA..hm..mulai dari kelas 2 SMP kayaknya film mandarin udah mulai booming..
Dulu, sih..senangnya film kolosal..ama filmnya Stephen Cow
oh pilemnya Simon Yam hehehe. Gpp Put, tenang ajah
@tigis. Jadi lumayan panjang nih:
1. Kalo mau latihan kungfu tiap hari sampai jagoan tanpa pusing mikirin duit buat hidup sehari-hari, syarat pertama: bokap loe harus orang kaya
)
2. si jendral dulunya sering main dorama (sinetron jepun) koq. gue masing inget serial GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka), si jendral dibikin kelenger sama pak guru Onizuka tuh.
3. Pemeran polisi/penerjemah itu aktor HK asli, Lam Ka-tung. Anaknya Yip Man ada 2, yang paling tua umurnya 88 tahun namanya Yip Jun (anak Yip Man yang main sepeda di film tuh) jadi konsultan film doang. Yang kedua Yip Jing umurnya masih awal 80-an, nggak muncul di flm. (thanx wikipedia
4. Adegan terbaik menurut gue sih, pas Yip Jun numpang lewat pake sepeda roda tiga nyampein pesan nyokapnya buat bokapnya supaya jangan ngancurin isi rumah wakakakak…. empet banget tuh muka si jagoan utara.
5. SPL = Sha Po Lang (2005). judul lainnya Kill Zone. Salah satu film dengan adegan bak bik buk terbaik yg pernah gue tongton. Kalo suka film gedebak gedebuk, ini pilem wajib tongton.
6. Kenapa si penerjemah bikin kalimat nantang si jenderal? Lha, ntar kalau nggak kayak gitu, adegan pamungkas nya nggak ada donk….hehehe…..
@putri, kalo sigit nawar rating pilem, ibu putri justru nawar umur diri sendiri nih
hehe elo ngetik sampe satu halaman jg gpp pren. Skalian elo latian jurus2x jari
1. hehe iya bener. Slama ini soalnya pendekar itu kesannya hidupnya sederhana, luntang-lantung, dan jauh dr kekuasaan dan kekayaan
2. wah ternyata bintang sinetron tho…..
3. yah, wikipedia lagi nih pren
4. huehehe iya itu adegan emang bikin ketawa. Gaya humor pilem2x mandarinnya kerasa banget
5. waduh, gue kudu nyari DVD nya dimana ya…
6. iya deh, yg ini gue ngikut elo aja dah
Saya baru nonton nih film…
bener2 bagus…
sampe diulang2 nontonnya hahaha…
btw, ini mas Yusahrizal anak Kimia ITB bukan ya?
wuah ini genk nya melayu nyasar ya
Siapa yah????
Salam kenal dan bertemu kembali didunia maya
sesama melayu nyasar kali pren