Background Info
The Legend is Born: Ip Man is a prequel that helps explain the earlier years in Ip’s life. Director Herman Yau cast To Yu-Hang as young Ip while inserting some of the other cast members from the other 2 Ip Man films as well. Lastly, Ip Chun, Ip’s actual son was also given a cameo role in the film. Would the cast be strong enough to overcome all the criticism of releasing another Ip movie so soon?
Legend is Born: Ip Man US Trailer
Story/Characters
The story of Ip Man is fairly basic. While some aspects are based in reality, others seem to be exaggerated quite a bit. This makes it hard to know what really happened and what is purely fiction. At the same time, foreign occupation shows up once more (and I get that historically this happened. It’s just getting overused.) The plot does have some nice twists, but it just isn’t original enough to surprise anyone. Course, I don’t know how original a biographical film can be, but they should have at least created more interesting plots if they were altering it anyways.
Yup, white people are still jerks
The characters are pretty bland as well. While I didn’t like Ip Tin-Chi’s character, my main gripe is with Ip Man himself. Now, I’m not criticizing To Yu-Huang at all, I’m talking about what they did with Ip Man as a person. Ip is almost too perfect; he never loses his temper and is always in the right. He even has 2 women fighting over his affection over the course of the film. Even Donnie’s version lost his temper a few times in the films, and I would have expected a younger version to be more brash, not more tranquil.
Action/Choreography
Now, the story doesn’t mean too much if there is good action to back it up. However, I feel like Ip Man stumbles once more. I remember reading somewhere that there would be several fights that had dozens of movements in them without any cuts, but I didn’t see them anywhere. Some wirework is evident, which isn’t that big of a deal, but it does make some movements feel fake for an otherwise grounded fight sequence. I just wish the fights were more memorable since the story took a back seat and was elaborated on so much. I was really disappointed with the final fight as well, it might as well have been skipped. Sadly, you’ll forget the fights just as quickly.
Own it, Watch it, or Skip it?
The Legend is Born: Ip Man is a very mixed bag. It tries to be biographical, yet alters the story so much it’s hardly believable. It puts actors from the first 2 films in it as different characters, which can confuse some since those faces are already associated with different names. The action is tolerable, but not nearly as memorable as the previous films. It might not be fair to compare this movie with Wilson Yip’s version, but many have called this Ip Man 3 (though wrong) and that is what people will associate it with. While not a bad movie, it’s a very big step back from what Donnie Yen has done.
Watch it
The Legend Is Born: Ip Man (Blu-ray/DVD Combo) US Version
The Legend Is Born: Ip Man DVD (US Version)
Hot off of the heels of Ip Man 2, a new trailer for The Legend is Born- Ip Man, has been released. The movie has a lot of stars from the other two movies in it, which I think might be confusing. Some of these actors include Sammo Hung and Fan Siu-Wong, (more…)
