Ip Man: Le combat final

Well it can't be said for sure, if it's the last one, but it does feel like a closure to a series that has spawned for movies altogether. While the first two remain the best (with zero being the weak link in that chain, though there are always worse movies as I like to say), this is a fine addition and nice round up.

Not only do you have two fine (mature) actors opposite/side-to-side, you also have a story that is told. A story that tries to show us, that violence is not key. Don't worry though, there is plenty of great action scenes in it. It actually heightens those scenes, when you have something solid in between them, that makes you wait for them

I've spent the 1992 year in Beijing, People's Republic of China. While I was there to work as a foreign expert, I had the chance to work for China Films, where they were writing subtitles for Chinese movies which were exported to abroad customers. Most of the films were Kung Fu movies, and in all of them, the dialogues were so dumb it was laughable. it's not the case with this film. This a well-made movie, with nice battle scenes, but also with an interesting story about a real character. This Master of Wung Shin was the teacher of Bruce Lee. The story is going on from 1949 to the end of the 1960's. It's rather interesting. The version I've watched was in Cantonese, with subtitles, and I recommend it.

Good that National Arts Films Production beat Ip Man 3 to the punch on the final chapter of Ip Man's saga. When Donnie Yen announced that he would not do another sequel to Ip Man, I thought what a pity. But now when I see Anthony Wong playing the Ip Man's part, maybe someone like him is a better cast for telling the twilight years of Ip Man's story.

The movie isn't going to be spectacular as Ip Man or Ip Man 2. You already know it from the cast. But it was good in its own ways because Anthony Wong's portrayal of the master was kind of spot on. Life in Hong Kong wasn't so easy in the '50s or '60s, and being an old man in that environment would have been hard even for a grand master of his caliber. The story integrates both Ip Man and Hong Kong pretty well. If there's a problem with this movie, story didn't flow as smoothly as it could have been, but finding story in Ip Man's old age probably wasn't so easy.

I would accept this movie as Ip Man 3. I don't know how good the real Ip Man 3 is going to be, but without Donnie Yen in the starring role, I'm sure it wouldn't have the high tension previous two movies had. As many have commented, this rush to capitalize on the Ip Man's popularity is getting to be passé. This movie was acceptable as the swan song to the saga of Ip Man.

I am accustomed to Donnie Yen but this actor was not bad. This film shows Ip Man in his older years which was an interesting portrayal. His team of students was another highlight.

Not the worst HK movie I've ever seen, but pretty far down there. Overall, I think the movie just never figured out what it wanted to be. Does it want to be a biography of Ip Man? Does it want to be a nostalgic piece to serve as a trip down memory lane for older Hong Kong citizens? Is this a movie to profile an iconic figure or a movie to give as much air time to multiple movie stars? In its attempt to honour Ip Man, the movie creates a wooden character of him which leaves little room for character development or interesting acting from Anthony Wong. Weakness is a trait that all humans have, but the movie does its best to remove as much of this trait from its portrayal of Ip Man as possible to immortalize him as some sort of legendary figure. Even in scenes where weakness is demonstrated, so little of it is explored that the audience is left with little to empathize with.

As part of that attempt to honour him, the movie makers tried to tie in as many characters and story lines from Ip Man's real life as possible. But again, its a mess. Few of those characters are developed and we never really get a chance to care about who they are below the surface. For example, I would have loved to see more of who Eric Tsang and Jordan Chan's characters really were.

As a final disappointment, scenes near the end of the movie totally betray the tone and style of the overall movie as well.

Watchable, but unfocused, disjointed and unorganized. A reminder to me why I have slowly drifted away from Hong Kong movies...