Despite all of the bad things that I had to say about the first film, Ip Man was still genuinely enjoyable due to the freshness and authenticity of its martial arts scenes. I am sad to say that this is not true of the sequel. While there is certainly a frisson of thrill as one anticipates the showdown between Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung, the overall quality of the fights in the sequel is dramatically lower, making it a thoroughly average martial arts film.
One of the reasons why the first film was so exciting was because it featured martial artists with styles that were visibly and palpably different one from the other, even to the inexpert eyes of martial arts laymen. This was possible because the film frequently used full body shots of the actors and long camera takes. This contributed to the feeling of the fights being authentic and grand, making every punch and every kick feel real and visceral.
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First off, don’t watch this. It’s terrible and you’d only be wasting your money. That said, I expected it before I went in and still dragged my wife into the cinema with me. This is because the original film The Storm Riders from 1998 is a huge guilty pleasure for me. This old review from LoveHKFilm.com (who still haven’t posted their review of the sequel yet!) put it best by calling it the Hong Kong version of Star Wars. As the reviewer Kozo noted, the original film, for all its cheap CGI effects, poor acting and hackneyed plot, successfully transported the viewer into a fantasy version of a mythical China that never actually existed but is clearly drawn from and inspired by Chinese themes and legends.
For my part, I immediately recognized The Storm Riders when I first watched it as the Chinese analogue of the many Western fantasy worlds I knew so much, Tolkien’s Middle Earth being the most iconic example. Of course, it wasn’t the only Chinese fantasy world. The version of China that Louis Cha’s novels are set in is unarguably more famous and celebrated, but it didn’t really feel fantastical enough for me. Come on, The Storm Riders even has a freaking dragon in it! Considering The Journey to the West as being fantasy is a bit unfair too. It would be like calling The Bible a fantasy novel.
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My wife and I went to watch this film at the 1 Borneo Mall on Christmas Day, mostly because her father is staying with us at Kota Kinabalu at the moment and he was bored. I’m not going to go into detail about the story, so if you haven’t heard about it yet, check out its page on Wikipedia.
What really struck me about the film was how safe the producers played. Just about every single event in the film is predictable in the worst possible way: courteous and cultured martial arts master who, of course, is also a Chinese patriot, kicking the asses of arrogant and barbaric Japanese invaders, heroic sacrifices, etc. etc. Haven’t we seen all this before? Apart from the boring similarities with Jet Li’s Fearless, released just two years ago, the film isn’t that accurate a portrayal of the master’s life, if his biography on Wikipedia is anything to go by.
Continue reading Ip Man →
The unexamined life is a life not worth living