Ip Man (The Awakening of Grand Master Ip Man) 葉問宗師覺醒 (Xie Miao)

Yet more Ip Man but this time its welcome for some fine fight choreography and a strong lead

Directed by Li Xijie

Starring Xie Miao, Chen Guanying, Zhao Yuxuan, Siegio De Ieso

Mandarin

2021

To be honest I was getting tired of the Ip Man films with each iteration it was just another xenophobic film about how astonishingly bad the foreigners are and how great the Chinese are. So in 2021 we get another Ip Man film this time starring Xie Miao in the title role and straight to streaming. Yet to my surprise I actually like this film a lot.

Set in 1915 Hong Kong we see Ip Man happening upon a daylight robbery on a public tram, being the righteous man he is he interferes and just so happens to meet a friend named Bufeng. Bufeng offers a place for him to stay and as well offer work as a rickshaw puller. During one of his rounds he and Bufeng comes upon some thugs kidnapping woman, Ip Man quickly dispatch these thugs. Unknown to Ip Man these kidnappers are working with for the British human trafficker Stark (Sergio De Ieso) who also happens to be colluding with the Chinese authorities. Stark doesn’t take this lightly and retaliates by attacking Ip Man’s place of residence and then challenging Ip Man to martial arts competition. The competition happens to be a ploy and Bufeng gets injured in the process so Ip Man has to single handedly storm the Stark mansion and resolve matters.

There are a few side plots here and there but this is pretty much the gist of the story. The film is not complex at all, it treads a very predictable path and the majority of the audience can guess what is going to happen next. The brisk pacing serves both as its saving grace and detriment. With the quick pace we move from one set piece to the next without having to focus much on the predictable plot but at the same time a lot plot threads and emotional beats are introduced haphazardly. There’s a scene where Ip Man so quickly bonds with all the residence and they enjoy their time together but this moment came about way too quickly and with no one actually really having spoken to Ip Man before. We have Bufeng’s sister who also happens to be Ip Man’s love interest being kidnapped which lacked any urgency with Ip Man and Feng happily waiting 3 days in order to participate in a competition fight with the evil foreigner. The ending was a tad rushed and conveniently ties everything together but it never felt earned. Of course patriotism is pushed again but because of its brisk nature it never lingers on it for far too long.

For those who don’t know Xie Miao was the child actor who played Jet Li’s son in My Father is a Hero (aka The Enforcer) (1995) and The New Legend of Shaolin (1994). Now as an adult he’s been appearing most predominantly in web films. Xie Miao does a fantastic job as the title character, he’s more happy and carefree in comparison to Donnie Yen’s or Dennis To’s version. Xie Miao is likable as our lead and the side cast are strong in their roles. But the as for the foreigners it is a different story, we have the main villain, Stark played by Sergio De Ieso who struggles with the English language despite playing a British man. Sergio De Ieso plays the role by constantly narrowing his eyes and speaking in hushed tones and at a slow pace. He is also forced to smoke a cigar and occasionally sipping on wine to connote how evil he is. Then you have his right hand man Morgan who snarls and twitches to show menace but comes across as bad attempts at acting.

I think the biggest saving grace for me was the fight scenes and they are plentiful. The choreography is more reminiscent of Sammo Hung’s hard hitting style with quick cuts and some tighter framing here and there unlike Yuen Woo Ping’s longer takes and wider angles. Though tighter framing may sound bad its actually used for the points of impact and its edited with good coherency. The choreography is varied and each fight scene changes things up enough to keep the audience entertained. Xie Miao’s Wing Chun is a tad more wushu’y but never going too far. The one thing that it does better than the other Ip Man films is that the fights are more grounded and routed in normal physics for most parts and features less of the wire work seen in the others. Another positive is the inclusion of the British martial arts style Bartitsu, though I don’t know how authentic it is portrayed in this film its great seeing it getting acknowledged and our combatant using a cane to fight Ip Man, which I believe was a weapon used by Bartitsu practisioners. The martial arts competition did kind of annoy me, feeling like a rehash of every other Ip Man film, most notable is the original Donnie Yen version but it made up for it with some quality fight choreography. The end fight with Stark was a tad underwhelming and short but it was fine none the less.

The score is also very strong aligning with choreography on display, the music ramps with the intensity of the fights and would adjust its tempo accordingly to the action beats.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, its breezy and features some very creative fight scenes.