He rejected Huo’s nationalist passions, instead choosing to battle Chinese thugs, help the poor, lecture the rich, and avoid fights rather than seek them out. Rejecting Fong’s youthful punch-drunk ways, Wong on screen was a tower of virtue known for being hard on himself but tolerant of others. The real-life Wong, who died in 1924, is sober and stoic, a physician who became a folk hero. Stories of this young, brash, fight-happy fist-slinger became a big craze during World War II, paving the way for Wong Fei-hung, whose first film piggybacked on Fong’s success. Huo was a big deal in serialized novels in the 1920s and ’30s, patriotically putting the pain on foreign fighters, but Fong actually arrived first on film, with Fang Shiyu Takes a Challenge (28) followed by The Adventures of Fong Sai-Yuk (38). These novels mostly featured characters descended from the martial-arts monks of the Shaolin temple, like the real-life Wong Fei-hung (Jet Li plays him in the Once Upon a Time in China series), Huo Yuanjia (Jet Li plays him in Fearless), and the fictitious Fong Sai-yuk (once again, Jet Li, in Fong Sai-yuk). Their goal wasn’t to blow your mind with wack-a-doodle Thunder Palms but to pay tribute to the kinda-sorta-real-life martial-arts masters who lived in China and preserved its traditions.
These were far more grounded accounts of martial artists, often fictionalizing the exploits of actual fighters. Their roots lie in what are sometimes called “combat novels” which started appearing around 1915. Kung fu movies are supposedly more realistic. The first wu xia movie was 1928’s Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, and it was full of booby-trapped underground mazes, hidden fortresses, funky weapons, and bizarre martial arts. Swordsmen in wu xia are so powerful that they can shoot their swords like guided missiles, kill with a laugh, or fire blasts of palm power, all fueled by their highly-developed internal chi. Set in the jiang hu (literally “rivers and lakes”), a storied realm akin to the mythologized American Wild West, these tales feature footloose monks, swordsmen, scholars, bandits, bodyguards, burglars, and beggars crossing paths, governed by strict, unwritten codes of behavior. Wu xia comes out of a school of literature about wandering warriors and martial-arts heroes that’s existed since around 90 B.C. Hong Kong martial-arts movies can be divided roughly into two categories: wu xia and kung fu. This means that Donnie Yen has joined a line of cinematic kung fu champions that stretches back to the 1940s, starting with Kwan Tak-hing, then Jimmy Wong Yu, then Jet Li, and now Donnie Yen. So if you can’t make a Bruce Lee biopic, then making one about his teacher is the next best thing. However, the Lee estate controls his image with an iron fist ( they sued Ip Man 3 when they heard a CGI Bruce would appear). It’s easy to underestimate the power of Bruce Lee, but the man was a massive icon and Hong Kongers who were alive in 1972 all remember where they were when he died. Why so much Ip Man? Partly because the holy grail of Hong Kong cinema has always been a Bruce Lee biopic.
Ip man full movie english version 2008 tv#
Ip died in 1972, and things were quiet until 2008 when the Raymond Wong-produced, Donnie Yen-starring Ip Man became a big hit and launched an Ip Man industry: two sequels, two unrelated Ip Man movies, Wong Kar Wai’s movie The Grandmaster, and a TV series. Already in his fifties, he’d studied wing chun in China, and became famous for it in Hong Kong, eventually taking on a teenage Bruce Lee as his student. The real-life Ip Man was a cop in China who moved to Hong Kong after the Communists came to power (Ip was a Nationalist, the guys who lost the civil war against Mao) and got a job as a wing chun teacher. If you can’t have a good time at a movie featuring Mike Tyson speaking Cantonese, a Bruce Lee look-alike, and a bunch of Yuen Wo-ping fight scenes, then you probably can’t have fun.
Ip man full movie english version 2008 series#
This time around, the series adds Mike Tyson playing himself and Danny Chan (the goalie in Shaolin Soccer) impersonating Bruce Lee, and it’s replaced Sammo Hung on action choreography with Yuen Wo-ping ( The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).
Donnie Yen may be in his early fifties but Ip Man is the first iconic role he’s ever played and he wears him well. As big-budget entertainment goes, the Ip Man movies are bulletproof. The third installment in the series that made Hong Kong kung fu movies box-office hits again brings back Ip Man-that mild-mannered slouch-shouldered paragon of Confucian virtue whose big claim to fame is that he taught Bruce Lee the art of wing chun. Ip Man 3 hits theaters this Friday, starring Donnie Yen and a CGI moth.
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