Review of Ip Man (2008) by Tero H — 22 Oct 2012

I watched this marvelous kung-fu film again.

Great action sequences, interesting story with believable characters, nice acting and flowing storytelling make this a classic, stylish kung-fu movie. Ip Man's skill, although incredible, is still believable and not quite superhuman in comparison with some Chinese wu-xia films. The film was based on real historical persons.

The DVD has clear picture with atmospheric music. There is a second extra feature DVD with lots of behind-the-scenes and documentary material.

The action scenes reminded me of Jet Li's film "Fearless", containing a few hard-to-believe movements, but technically they look realistic enough to be possible - especially after watching Yip Man's student, Bruce Lee a lot one is bound to know well enough that those kind of extremely fast sequences can be possible without breaking the rules of physics.

Nicely acted, less melodramatic than most kung fu movies seem to be, and contains historical elements which create added depth to the movie. One of the best kung-fu movies I have seen. Really, it may be the best.