Ip Man: The Awakening
Directors Li Xi Jie and Zhang Zhu Lin join ideas to produce “Ip Man: The Awakening” and the legend still lives on.
With Donnie Yen’s departure from the Ip Man franchise at the end of the fourth installment, we are introduced to Tse Miu, with over 20 movies under his name, Tse Miu is determined to continue the legend of Ip Man and bring back the kung fu franchise from its terrible fifth installment which shall not be named.
After 8 years away from Hong Kong, Ip Man (Miu Tse) returns to his neighborhood to find that things haven’t become better but worse with the sudden disappearances of young girls in the area and what’s even worse about this whole situation is that the people themselves don’t want to report or talk about it.
The people have become comfortable with their daily lives, so as long as it has nothing to do with them, no one will help. Which is different from the Ip Man films I knew.
The saddest fact about this is that its Chinese citizens kidnapping young girls for the corrupt British official, Mr. Stark.
This film is certainly one of my favorite installments since the first. Aside from its incredible cinematography and introduction of Tse Miu as Ip Man.
The pacing of the film is great in the sense that it portrays this beautiful beginning at the start of the film with colors as far as the eyes can see and a happy environment with friendly people all around but that all changes at night when after coming back from their daily rickshaw runs.
They happen to see a couple of men kidnapping a few women, and as Ip Man tries to address these men, his student Bufeng played by Chen Guan Ying instead seeks to avert his master from the set of circumstances; stating that getting involved will only cause more problems.
This is what makes Ip Man: The Awakening so impactful for me. Not only does it address the notion of fighting for the right thing but it also cautions that fighting for the right reasons will have consequences, so there should be a time and place, to pick your battles wisely.
The big bad baddie in this film Mr.Stark played by Sergio Deieso is nothing short of an empty villain who lacks a script with more than 2 paragraphs.
He is greedy to the point of no return, dangerous in the fact that he will use any means necessary to achieve his quota with no morals whatsoever. Perceiving people as two types, “expensive and cheap”, how comical.
As with all Ip Man films, this is a kung fu movie at the end of the day and the showdown comes down to the British’s almost forgotten material art Bartitsu developed in 1898, against the Chinese Wing Chun style.
The action fight scenes throughout the movie are spectacular to watch, well-choreographed and polished, funny and quirky at times but this is all part of the film.
Ip Man: The Awakening is certainly one of the best Ip Man films out to date, and I say this with the utmost respect hence there are many spin-offs aside from the original films featuring Donnie Yen.
The directors did a wonderful job in bringing back the love, fun, and action in the Ip Man franchise. The cast deserves a round of applause as well for their heartfelt performance.
Let me know what you enjoyed the most about this film and if you disapprove then let us know what you didn’t like either in the comments section at the bottom.
Thanks for reading…
