I remember watching Ip Man 2 and loving it after watching it. Now after rewatching it again, I came out feeling rather different than the first time I watched it.
Starting with what this movie improves upon is the much bigger action. Sammo Hung returns as the choreographer for this movie but also as a new character “Hung Chun-nam” who is an arch-nemesis of sort and rival for IP man. For example, in the first film IP man fights 10 people but what if fought dozens of them or the fight against the martial artist on the table. These fights are exciting, thrilling and very creative such as in the fight with the use of the environment and wooden board to create interesting choreography. The introduction of western boxing against Chinese martial art makes for an amazing fight and Sammo Hung utilize both styles in a great way for fluidity vs brutality. The different styles of Chinese martial arts are also blended very well which allows for fluid interplay between the contrasting styles.
Another improvement is that within these fights, IP Man feels like he is in danger. In the first movie, IP man always dominates every fight without any real issue which worked for the movie but as the audience, we never really felt like IP Man was in danger. He fights the martial art master Hung Chun-nam (Sammo Hung) who rival IP Man in speed and power. When IP Man was fighting dozens of men who had knives at the same time it felt to us the audience that it was even too much for him to cope as he had to try and retreat. The boxer “Twister” played by Darren Shahlavi (who sadly passed away January 2015) is more ferocious and physically stronger than IP Man. I give props to Darren for giving a very arrogant and narcissistic performance to make him very hateable to the audience. The final fight against Twister is 11 minutes of fist curling excitement and is an amazing fight.
While the fights are “bigger” there not necessarily better per se. IP man 1 had a more grounded and realistic fight which is what made the first movie very unique whereas IP Man 2 uses over the top and cartooney sorts of fights. IP Man 2 utilizes a lot more wirework which is very noticeable. Additionally, a fair amount of supporting character’s performance (especially the British actors) are cartoonishly bad and just feel dumb.
The story is also very weak when compared to the
first movie. The movie centres on IP Man’s struggle to start a martial
art dojo in Hong Kong as he is challenged by cartooney martial art
masters. The second half then becomes a Chinese remake of Rocky IV with
his fight against the British and racist boxer twister. IP Man also
gives a speech that ends racism which is similar to Rocky ending the
cold war in Rocky IV. Some of the returning characters from the first
movie such as Chow Ching-chuen (Simon Yam) IP Man’s friend who is now
amnesiac and Kam Shan-Chau (Louis Fan) a robber who has now mended his
ways feel very irrelevant in the overall narrative. They don’t add much
to IP Man’s character and honestly just feel like they are there to make
people go “oh remember him from the first movie!” and that is rather
disappointing. Furthermore, the first movie invoked a more intense
struggle with the World War 2 invasion but this movie focuses more on
Chinese pride and that results in a cliche message at the end. IP Man
never really goes through a character arc like the first movie which
makes the story irrelevant for his character as well.
There is
one good aspect of the story that I wished was kind of explored a bit
more or focused upon which is the relationship between IP Man and Wong
Leung (Huang Xiaoming) his first student. His student actually goes
through a character arc with his relationship with IP Man causing him to
improve himself. There is only a couple of scenes where its just IP Man
and Leung but they are great non-action moments that show IP Man’s
wisdom being used to help others. Sadly, this is kind of tossed away
once the boxer Twister comes though…
Overall, I am surprised after rewatching this movie. It was not as great as I remember it. While the fights are more flashy and bigger, it doesn’t have the same charm as the more brutal and grounded fights of the first movie. The story was surprisingly not great but despite all that I kind of enjoyed this movie still. This movie is more reminiscent of older martial art movies instead of doing something different like the first movie. Doing something that is already done but doing it great isn’t necessarily bad. This movie has it’s own charms and if you just take it as its own thing then its a really good martial art movie. However, it is a sequel and when I think of it like that then it does make me feel slightly disappointed. In the end, its a good martial art movie and you will still come out of it having a good time.
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