User reviews

Like all 3 films before this one the plots are based on real historic events, and in order for ALL audience to get the "message" and create a contrast of the two sides so they can root for the good guys, filmakers always exaggerates, e.g. twice the hate, twice the shame, twice the fall, or else it's just a boring documentary. It's the type of risk the investors nowadays might not want to take if the "message" isn't clear. So here we are with the film as it is.

The portrayed Americans are unrealistically dumb, and their dialogue seem like it came out of a high school play. There's a bunch of scenes which all they do is provoke a fight and be as bad as they can be. For the audience these parts are extremely uncomfortable to watch, and awkward. But after these scenes everything's back to normal for a while.

The fight scenes are superb, just great. The Chinese actors all did a wonderful job of acting, even though I think they should speak Mandarin to each other instead of one guy Mandarin and the other guy Cantonese.

Haters and patriots are not going to like it because it's a film made mainly for Chinese audience, but we're here to see some fights so don't get sucked into all that political propaganda.

The good, watchable parts of the movie centered on Donnie Yen and the challenges of parenting. The martial arts scenes were entertaining and effective, as was the presence of Bruce Lee and his school. Banda Margraf balanced all the heavy characters like a breath of fresh air, her character was like able, watchable, and gave Ip Man insight. The story was mostly set in San Francisco, so as a yank it was disconcerting to see the many little things that the movie didn't get right. The big things, like the closest Marine base is 300 miles away, are forgiveable (they're telling a story and need a villain). But the little things, like federal officers would be bearded and wearing black leather jackets, like Kung fu movie villains, took away from the movie. And just to get this straight, A Marine can not walk into an ICE building and demand a prisoner be handed over since the ICE agent is more afraid of losing his pension than of getting beaten. This film is tainted by claiming that overt violent hatred of Chinese, to the extent that our military targeted them, existed. This at a time when China is trying to make the US look bad so they can illegally grab the South China Sea.

I consider the IP Man movies the best kung-fu movies, period. Especially the first two. My expectations were high. They were not met.

This movie is just recycling the formula of the prior movies, but does it much worse. The fight scenes also didn't really match the intensity and choreography of any of the earlier films. The stuff in between the fight scenes was poorly written with poor acting. Donnie Yen is so much better than this. Thankfully this should be the end of this movie franchise.

Now do a film about Bruce Lee at IP Man's school.

Saw it at the theatres, such an amazing finale.

Donnie, you're an amazing martial artist. Lived up to IP MAN's legacy.

I like how the setting is displayed and there's a lot of action scenes between Donnie yen and Scott Adkins. This bring a lot of excitement to us, hope to make more of movies like this in the future.

Most can probably agree that the 'Ip Man' films just got worse as time went on. The action was always great, but the general story lines and acting just went downhill.

As much as I loved Donnie Yen playing Ip Man, I'm glad he's done, at least I certainly hope so. Bruce Lee was basically just a random throw in character and was reduced to a very limited role, when he should have been one of the main characters and plot points. Instead racism is the plot. The acting, especially by anyone who wasn't Chinese was absolutely horrendous, so cringe every time, aside from maybe Scott Adkins.

The first film is phenomenal. Filled with not only great action, but great emotion. The others, especially number 4, just couldn't emulate it, even though they tried.

My only objection is the selection of a 40+ yrs old actor to play a 24yrs old Bruce Lee. The aged face of that actor was more than obvious. Aside from that, i really enjoyed the movie. All four of them are excellent movies.

The 2019 addition to the "Ip Man" franchise is definitely well-worth taking the time to sit down and watch, especially if you have seen the previous movies that also had Donnie Yen in the role as Master Ip Man.

The continuation of the storyline is good, and I will say that the movie definitely is entertaining, and it has a good amount of mixture of genres, ranging from drama to action - of course, with a heavy focus on the latter, naturally.

I will say that "Ip Man 4: The Finale" has some of the most hard-pounding and brutal of fight scenes in the entire franchise. And those alone make it well-worth taking the time to sit down to watch this movie.

Donnie Yen returns to don the mantle of Ip Man, which he has done quite well in the previous movies. And he does so once more again here in the fourth movie.

I am rating "Ip Man 4: The Finale" a well deserving seven out of ten stars, because the storyline was good, the character development was good, and the acting was good. But most importantly, the fighting was good.

The fight scenes were good as usual and I love the depiction of Ip Man as being calm, honorable and good. It was nice to see Bruce Lee in a few scenes, very few. You can feel that the end of Ip Man is coming in how the story moves along. I did enjoy this movie to a point because it gave a conclusion to Ip Man's story, but half of the movie seemed to be focused on white people being racist toward every other race which most movies and tv shows in this age of political correctness like to focus on now.

There is a big difference in the story telling from the first Ip Man to this final installment. The first had a great story that did not try to stereotype anyone or any race. This one is focused on race period. If you want to see the conclusion to a once great franchise, I recommend this as a rental, but otherwise, I cannot recommend it.

All the other movies were so good, but this one, except the main character, had some really bad acting, bad script... it looked so cheap, like a 7 years old wrote the script for this. It's a shame to end the series like this.

Yip Man was a real Kung Fu master. But the movies of Yip Man are wholly fictional.

Bruce Lee was a student of Yip. But Bruce, instead of practicing Wing Chun, developed a new martial arts: Jeet Kune Do.

Most of the favourite students of Bruce are Non Chinese. In fact, the Kung Fu masters in USA were usually challenged by Chinese not Westerners.

The IP man trilogy is one of if not my favourite film series of all time and this is just nowhere near the previous standard. The storyline and script are pretty horrific. The action scenes are still at times good and the small good moments and mere presence of Donnie Yen made me glad it still existed just about as it was better than nothing. Despite this it just felt like another generic martial arts film done on the cheap with little story a blemish on the rest of the series and unless you're a massive fan already I would probably avoid.

IP MAN has already won the hearts of everyone since the first movie came out. The phrase "i want to beat 10 people!" has been in the heads of all viewers. The stories were well connected with the 3rd installment, indicating the life after his wife was gone due to cancer. The characters in the movie all played a very significant role in portraying the unfairness of the Americans towards immigrants, with every punch, every hate speech brings out the the worse side of a world full of racism. In the sequel, IP MAN took quite some blows while comfronting Americans that were bullying the Chinese there, which lead to a series of events that eventually lead to the final fight with the American marines. In the 4th sequel, the director also did a very good job in displaying an old IP MAN in the making, gasping for air every time he is knocked down, swinging away the pain from the injuries he has taken. It truly tells us that IP MAN is aging along with all the sequels, and this would be his final stand. Overall, the movie was very touching and thrilling at the same time, so I am giving it a 8/10. Well done!

Unfortunately the last one. But the ending is also what makes it great

Worth the writing and story-telling of this saga, I honestly think two more films could have worked. The fight scenes were incredible and of course loved the story.

I thought the racism was over the top, initially, but talking with my mother in law who watched it with me and lived through darker days in the US, she said she witnessed exactly that against the Asian community. I feel like this was spot on for those times. Sad but true.

Ip Man's character is a marvel to watch. I truly love what Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip have created here. Master story tellers and martial artists.

I was truly in awe with the fight scenes. And Bruce Lee was incredible!!! They nailed it man. I guess no more Ip Man, but every year I watch them over and over. Now thankfully I have one more to add.

Thank you Donnie Yen. Thank you Wilson Yip. Hopefully you can continue the story with Bruce Lee.

Now that's how you make a proper film. The whole movie was super impressive. Never got bored.

As a Chinese, this was nothing but embarrassing. It has no plot, no acting skills, and no moral. It portrayed Americans as brainless prejudiced hatred-filled demons. The essence of the movie is pretty much "hey, Chinese pig you want to fight?" "Sure, lets fight." Please Avoid if you cherish your time and your life.

For almost a decade now, a trademark by this IP Man series has been its scintillating stunt coordination. Indeed, the energy flow between heroes and villians is a bedrock for capturing cognitive positive reviews over the years; for the foregoing statement, much can be said about this series. IP Man's character portrayed by Donnie Yen provides a natural flow of energy that takes viewers mind backwards to the reality of time concerning the real legend. Bringing on board the performance of Scott Adkins in this films wows the audience with his experience in these genres; together, the duo made directing appreciative and arguably faultless-the impact of experience. Its Production Design is also a good testimony of how the series had fared over the years. A Great setting vividly combining reality and fiction for a demanding crowd.

I have a been a huge fan of the Ip Man series ever since the first movie came out in 2008. I watched all of the films in the series including the spinoff "Master Z: Ip Man legacy". So, of course, I was going to go see this movie as well, especially considering its the last one in the main Ip Man films. Unfortunately, I came out feeling very disappointed in this movie.

Let's start with the positives. The first and probably the reason most people come to watch this film is the fight scenes. They are still very well choreographed and this iteration features a variety of different type of martial arts including western Karate. Seeing how they choreographed different fighting styles. The fighting is also fast-paced and stylistic. The second has to be Donnie Yen's marvellous performance as the titular character Ip Man. He continues to embody the character perfectly and give a convincing dialogue as a man with many wisdom. Likewise, I also have to praise Wu Yue as Wan Zong-Hua (chairman of the Chinese Benevolent Association) for providing a contrasting character to Ip Man belief but still give that aura of wisdom. Danny Chan returns as Bruce Lee from Ip Man 3 and he is still great and resembles him. The score from Kenji Kawai returns and is also still really good at elevating every scene albeit it is still kinda similar to that of all the previous entries.

Now let's get to all the negatives from this film. Firstly, while I did praise the fights and its choreography; it's not very memorable. Each film tends to have one or multiple fights that stick in your mind: The first film had the fight against 10 Japanese karate fighters, the second with the fish market fight and the table fight and the fight against the boxer, the third film with the fight against Mike Tyson and the final fight. However, the fights in this film don't come close to the memorable fights of previous films. The closest it gets is maybe the Ip man vs Wan Zong-Hua or the Ip Man vs Scott Adkins (can't even remember his character's name...). Even those fights feel short and underwhelming at points. Secondly, why is every character in this film also borderline cartooney? There have been some over the top characters in previous entries but it was usually just one for comic relief but in this film, it feels like apart from the three characters I listed above; everyone else is over the top. This blend of serious performances from some actors with the over the top from others is very jarring. For example, Scott Adkins plays this over the top racist general but he is so blatantly racist and acts like a stereotypical general that it makes you wonder how he was even employed. Thirdly, the story is atrocious and lacks any nuance or depth. The story is simply Ip Man goes to America to get his son a school there and some weird racist stuff happens with Bruce Lee doing just kind of being there. The message in this film is, of course, exploring racism and they do kind of try to make it subtle with Bruce Lee who trains western people despite criticism from the Chinese people. HOWEVER, they waste Bruce Lee in this film by not even remotely having him involved in the main plot! He could have been used to show that it was possible for acknowledgement between Chinese and western people but they don't even utilise this. Instead, we got over the top racist people trying to get rid of all Chinese people and prove Kung fu sucks so Ip Man has to stop him and convince some people otherwise. Due to them not utilising Bruce Lee more, the message of this film ends up feeling like western people are racist and bad even though this contrast Bruce Lee and even Ip Man point within this film. It doesn't feel like a necessary story to tell for Ip Man with only a couple of things adding to his character like cancer and filming his training I guess? Also, this racist thing has already been done in Ip Man 2 so it is weird they are doing it again even if it explored slightly better. It just feels like similar ground and too much of a retread. Additionally, they decide to up the melodrama with all these family drama that really feels like they were trying to force some kind of character development.

Overall, this film is a disappointing entry with its huge waste of story potential. However, the movie retains a lot of what makes IP Man a great martial art movie. The grounded, brutal yet fluid realistic fights are still there and are still great as always. The fluid interplay between contrasting martial arts are still great. Donnie Yen continues giving a wised yet graceful performance as the titular character with an elegant yet ferocious fighting style. Additionally, the last 15-20 minutes of this movie is very thrilling and also a very satisfying conclusion to the legacy of this franchise. In the end, this movie still provides fans with what made them fall in love with this franchise in the first place and sticking to its strengths still makes for a very good time.

It was a little weak compared to other movies, but I love this series. Great music, great choreography. It was a bit emotional because it was the last movie :(