Review of Ip Man: The Final Fight (2013) by Steve W — 23 Feb 2014

From the director of The Legend is Born: Ip Man comes another movie about Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man. This time, its Anthony Wong as an older version, and this movie is a slight improvement over its predecessor. However, there are still plenty of problems abound.

Anthony Wong gives a great performance, especially when he's got the years to go with the aged wisdom. The fight scenes are well done, but its the story that's still on the lame side.

The movie is mostly filler, focused on the affairs of his students. It eventually gets to the point in the story where Ip Man must deal with a vicious Triad leader, who has drugged one of his students in an underground fighting ring. Getting there is a real chore, as there's a solid 30-40 minute sag of nothing really happening in the middle.

With a good fight scene at the beginning of the film and at the climax, what this movie needed was one more fight to round it out. Instead of showing the vicious Triad leader fighting to showcase his skills, they are told to us via radio broadcast instead of a full fledged fight scene. If you have a chance to give the audience more action, then they should go with that route.

Ip Man: The Final Fight is a slight improvement over his last movie, but Herman Yau's movie needed a tighter script to compliment the acting and fight choreography.