Martial Arts Movie Madness: #3 Ip Man vs. #11 Ip Man 2 (votes needed)

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Voting will close on 05/12/2019 at 6 pm EDT.

The Sequel Versus The One That Started It All

The first Ip Man movie was a breath of fresh air, started a trend of Ip Man related movies, and gave Donnie Yen’s career a big push. It was an odd choice at first. Everybody knew Ip Man as Bruce Lee’s teacher. Wing Chun has tons of students all around the world and most come from Ip Sifu’s line. So I guess a sequel was probably in no one’s mind until the first one’s success. The first one succeeded and then the sequel came out. And it was quite good. But was it as good as the first one? Or is the original one better? That is for you to decide. Let’s get into each of these movies.

Ip Man

Ip Man shows us a fictionalized version of Grandmaster Ip Man’s life. He’s a renowned master of martial arts in a city plagued with schools. This is in Foshan, a long time before he migrated to Hong Kong and met his most famous student. He is shown as a family man and devoted martial artist who’s arguably the best the city has to offer and we get every opportunity for him to show us. We see him defend the honor of Southern Kung Fu against a Northerner Then comes the Japanese occupation and Ip Man has to defend the honor of Chinese martial arts against the invaders and finally flee the mainland for Hong Kong.

Ip Man 2

We’re back with Ip Sifu, now in Hong Kong after defeating the Japanese. We see him struggling to open a Wing Chun school. A group of Sifus has a chokehold on the markets and no one can open a school without their permission. This group of masters is led by Sifu Hung Chun-nam, a Hung Kuen master. Played by the great Sammo Hung, Sifu Hung appears briefly on the film but makes a lasting impact. He collects a protection fee from the different schools. The real reason behind this arrangement is to protect kung fu schools from the British who run Hong Kong. After a demonstration that ends in tragedy for the local Sifus, once again it comes down to Ip Man to defend the honor of Chinese Kung Fu against foreigners.

The Martial Arts

So, to the part we’re all here for. Two very good movies, if not great ones, fun to watch, nice characters, decent story and all but what about the fight scenes? Let’s start with the first movie.

Ip Man

Donnie Yen’s Wing Chun looks as realistic as a movie can show, as far as I can tell. The actor trained with Ip Chun and his students for the film. We get the fast succession of machine gun-like punches, the short stances, and even the six point and a half pole. There’s a great fight with the northern bandit Jin Shanzhao (played by Fan Siu-wong) where we can see the contrast between Wing Chun and an archetypical northern long fist style. It is a wonderful choreography between two great martial arts actors who know that they are doing. After that one, there’s the famous fight between Ip Sifu and ten Japanese Karateka. It’s in the trailer, it’s great. Not my favorite of the movie but that’s just me. Finally, Ip Sifu fights Miura, a Japanese general and Karateka. Each fight is more difficult than the last. In each, we see not only Ip Sifu’s physical skills, but also his fighting strategy and how he adapts to defeat each challenge.

Ip Man 2

To be honest it only gets better from the first one in the sequel. We see Ip Sifu teaching students and his students fighting. Also, we get to see Donnie Yen using knives like the Wu Dip Do of southern styles. There’s a Wing Chun vs Hung Kuen fight on top of a table performed by Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung. Again, each style shown is faithfully represented. As before, each fight is more difficult than the last for our protagonist. The fight with Twister, the British boxer (played by the late Darren Shahlavi) is the toughest probably of the whole series. It’s a wonderful fight showing the strength and weaknesses of each fighter and their respective styles.

Conclusion

The Ip Man movies came at a time when there was a bit of a shortage of good kung fu films. In each film (and it’s sequels and the ones without Donnie Yen) we see Ip Man as a defender of the Chinese people. A defender of their honor. Much like Wong Fei-hung was back in the day in the Jet Li movies and earlier incarnations. These films gave a new life to the genre. The quality and style of the fights set a new bar. If you need any more info on each there are reviews on the site for Ip Man and Ip Man 2. But which one’s better? Well, that’s up to you, reader, so don’t forget to vote!

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Ezequiel Davidovich Caballero

I'm from Argentina, Spanish is my mother tongue, and English my second language. I've been into martial arts for as long as I can remember. I've been doing Hung Sing Choy Li Fat (aka Choy Lee Fut or Choy Lay Fut, same thing) for almost two decades now with bits of other Chinese styles in it. Hope you like what I write.

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