Ip Man 2 (2010)

Okay, so I kinda watched these back to back.  Except with another movie and an anime series in between.  It was in the span of a week, though, so I'm gonna say it was true to the intent.  Otherwise, I found myself making comparisons once again to the Jet Li movie, Fearless, since both franchises deal with restoring national pride and taking on foreign fighters in highly publicized matches.  Did this sort of thing happen a lot or is it one of those storytelling tropes that plays well with the home audience?  Ip Man and Huo Yuanjia are such romanticized figures it's hard to know without really researching it.  It's still a great series of movies and I can't recommend them more highly.  Originally posted 08 Mar 14.    It is the rare sequel that improves upon the original but Ip Man 2 definitely makes the grade.

After the uprising in Foshan, Master Ip Man (Donnie Yen) moves to Hong Kong and tries to open up a new Wing Chun studio.  The way is definitely slow going, however, as he faces opposition from uppity students (Simon Yam) and local martial arts masters (Sammo Hung).  Ip perseveres, however, winning the respect of all his peers.  Then, he is drawn in to the tensions between the native Chinese and the ruling Brits as a corrupt police officer (Charles Mayer) sets up a boxing match between the world champion (Darren Shahlavi) and any comers.

Sammo Hung!  Do you need another reason to watch this?  He did all of the fight choreography and it is amazing.  Granted, it is wire work but it looks fantastic and isn't that enough?

I haven't seen Wong Kar-Wai's version of the Ip Man legend but, so far, this is my favorite adaptation.  Donnie Yen is note-perfect in his humility and warmth without ever coming across as simple or false.  The first movie did a good job of setting that up, so there's less character development here.  It's almost like one movie that was cut into two parts.  I would recommend watching them back to back and not almost a year apart like I did.  That's what I will do next time, after I buy these.