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My Top Ip Man movies

 

I have recently been rewatching the Ip Man series to see if my opinions would change in anyway. I’ve just recently finished Ip Man 4: The Finale and I have to say my opinion has not change whatsoever. So with my rewatching done, it is time for me to rank my top 5 Ip Man movies. 

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My Review: Review of IP Man 4

Yeah this is going to be very controversial but my least favorite Ip Man movie is the latest and final one. Even after rewatching it I still think its the worst entry.

The fights are okay but no where near as good as previous entries and I believe this is due to the fact that most of the fights are just in open areas which makes it feel very generic. Ip Man 2 and 3 had the environments be used as a part of the choreography and the first one itself had Ip Man fight multitude of people at the same time with interesting weapons being used such as a really long stick. Here they are just all fist fights with only one fight utilising the environment. Apart from Bruce Lee fight and the fight against CBA Tai Chi master, none of them are extremely memorable. The final fight against Scott Adkins sergeant is short and really anti climatic as well. He wins by poking him in the neck and that is just really dumb. Also I hated how apart from Ip Man, none of the other Chinese Masters were remotely competent. Master Law gets taken out in just two punches by American Karate dude who then proceeds to beat a further two kung fu masters with relative ease. It takes one 67 year old man to beat him and that is dumb and honestly made me agree with Scott’s character that Kung Fu isn’t that great. 

The story is also dumb and is just a retread of Ip Man 2 with more dumb melodrama which is just lazy if you ask me. It just feels like wasted potential especially with the under utilisation of Bruce Lee. The director once stated that he wanted to explore the relationship between Ip Man and Bruce Lee so why didn’t he do it considering this was the perfect chance for it? 

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My Review:Review of IP Man 2

It’s Ip Man’s version of Rocky IV pretty much even with Ip Man somehow ending racism with a cool speech like Rocky. The movie is just dumb and over the top which is just so weirdly different from the serious and grounded original Ip Man movie. It’s just kind of jarring honestly.

The fights are certainly flashy and bigger but they are definitely very unrealistic with all the weird floatiness.  

However, if you ignore the fact its a sequel and just take it for what it is then the movie is still really enjoyable. Especially, that 11 minute fight at the end is so exciting and the over the top table fight is ridiculous but awesome. It’s such a shame the story is largely uninspired and inconsequential in the overall Ip Man story.

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My Review:Review of Master Z: IP Man Legacy

The first spinoff movie in the Ip Man universe and its surprisingly enjoyable. This movie goes all in with the ridiculous nature with loads of wirework to make over the top and gravity defying action scenes. It abandons all sense of grounded and realism of Ip Man movies. However, these fight scenes are all really fun to watch.

Also, a majority of the cast are great and Dave Bautista himself is one of the more better Western villains from these films but is sadly under utilised. 

Unfortunately, the story is stupid and has too many things crammed into it that it feels all over the place. It’s also very corny and attempts to be funny but it doesn’t land. The editing is also bad and the set design are not very good. 


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My Review: Review of IP Man 3

I think this movie gets a lot of unnecessary hate because Mike Tyson is in it which is just surreal. If you ask me the fight against Mike Tyson is still really cool. Heck a lot of the fights in this movie are really good especially with them actually attempting something different with the use of the surrounding environments. 

My only general complaint with this movie is that the first half is very poor in terms of plot. It suffers from cramming too many things into it and not really exploring the antagonist which leads to a magical resolution. However, the second half is really good and I like that the director found a way to give Ip Man a story arc of sort. This is one of the more emotionally driven movies and I really love that about it.


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My Review: Review of IP Man

I don’t think it should be any surprise that this is number one. 

It had amazing fights with an terrific story. There is a reason this movie started a franchise and launched Donnie Yen into fame. 

It’s one of the best martial art movies in decades and it’s sequels never quite reach this level.

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