A Review of "IP Man 4: The Finale (2019)"

 

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 good points in this movie. 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 marvelous 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.