
- HOW MUCH OF YIP MAN 2 WAS TRUE HOW TO
- HOW MUCH OF YIP MAN 2 WAS TRUE MOVIE
- HOW MUCH OF YIP MAN 2 WAS TRUE TV
But movie-goers want to see a lot of action going on in the screen.
HOW MUCH OF YIP MAN 2 WAS TRUE MOVIE
Of course in the movie they turn Wing Chun into a superpower, one man can fight a thousand people. I watched it as entertainment, as a promotion of the name Wing Chun. Like I explained to you, I presumed its fanciful take on martial arts would be insulting. Space aliens and robots - you may be next.I was surprised to learn you enjoyed Ip Man 3. We've already seen Ip Man take down Japanese soldiers, British colonialists, Hong Kong gangsters and rival kung fu masters. (The popular martial arts hero Wong Fei-hung, who has been played by Jet Li in the Once Upon a Time in China series, is set to make a film comeback.)
HOW MUCH OF YIP MAN 2 WAS TRUE TV
In fact, Ip follows a tradition of celebrated folk heroes from southern China with impressive martial arts skills that inspire film and TV projects. "Up now, Ip Man relatively fresh and, not to be offensive, still room for exploitation." But not enough for martial arts," she explains. "In the comic world, you have Superman, Spider-Man, Avengers. Li says she understands Ip's appeal to audiences as a character. The Final Fight is the second Ip Man project for screenwriter Erica Li, who also wrote the 2010 prequel about the kung fu master's early years, The Legend Is Born: Ip Man. Its plot revolves around labor strikes and anticolonial politics. cities - is rooted in nostalgia for 1950s Hong Kong. The other Ip Man movie this year - Ip Man: The Final Fight, which opens Sept. The film crisscrosses over decades between Hong Kong and mainland China.Īnthony Wong plays an older Ip Man in Ip Man: The Final Fight, which will open in the U.S.

In an early scene, a gleaming brothel serves as the battleground for Ip Man and his rivals. True to Wong's signature art-house style, The Grandmaster is one lush sequence after another.

It's time for us to return to our roots and to revisit our heritage," Wong says. "Today we see the Chinese went through rapid changes. His latest film, The Grandmaster, which stars Tony Leung as Ip Man, is an action-packed meditation on Chinese martial arts philosophy that is intentionally old-fashioned. The last generation includes the smiling man in the painted portrait hanging in the back of the studio, where Lee's late teacher Ip Man appears to be keeping watch above a wooden dummy.įilmmaker Wong Kar Wai credits Ip Man's generation for passing on the martial arts tradition despite upheaval in China. You have to at least have certain etiquette to respect our last generation." "So you don't follow the American way here. "I want to run my school in a traditional Chinese way," Lee says, though most of his students are not of Chinese descent. On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a half-dozen of Lee's most senior students, armed with fraying wrist wraps and leg pads, threw punches and kicks atop a bare concrete slab. Today, Lee runs the Ip Man Wing Chun Kung Fu Academy in a former bowling alley in Queens, N.Y.
HOW MUCH OF YIP MAN 2 WAS TRUE HOW TO
Lee first took lessons from Ip Man himself and his disciples almost 50 years ago, when he began learning Wing Chun principles like how to overcome an opponent's physical advantage and minimize his movement. In Ip Man 2, he nimbly balances on a tilting tabletop as he jabs at a challenger – a scenario that's more movie magic than an accurate display of skill level.Ī visit to Allan Lee's Wing Chun kung fu school offers a more accurate depiction of what Ip Man in action may have really looked like. They often portray him as a lone, nationalist hero with almost superhuman skills. The Ip Man movies are loosely based on his life. Lee began studying Wing Chun-style kung fu under Ip Man (seen in portrait) and his disciples almost 50 years ago. carefully controls his image." (A recent exception is the 2010 biopic Bruce Lee, My Brother, which received the support of Lee's brother Robert.) Unable to make Bruce Lee movies, filmmakers turned to what Hendrix calls "the next best thing."Īllan Lee, 64, at his kung fu studio in Queens, N.Y. Instead, Hendrix says, the character many filmmakers had in mind to put on screen was Ip's most famous student, Bruce Lee.īut, Hendrix adds, " always been blocked by the Lee family who.

"People haven't been sitting around going, 'Oh my god! I hope someone makes an Ip Man movie this year!' " "Ip Man was not a well-known public figure before these movies started," he says. Ip Man (pronounced YEEP-mun in Cantonese) has long been renowned as a skilled teacher within the world of Wing Chun-style kung fu.īut he's also a new popular creation of Hong Kong filmmakers, says Grady Hendrix, co-founder of the New York Asian Film Festival. Donnie Yen played Ip Man in the 2008 film Ip Man and its 2010 sequel Ip Man 2.
