The Movie:

Directed by Wilson Yip and written by Edmond Wong (who previously worked together on Dragon Tiger Gate), 2008's Ip Man, which beings just before the Sino Japanese war starts, tells the true life story of Ip Man (who would later mentor Bruce Lee, and who is played here by Donnie Yen), the grand master of Wing Chun and the finest martial artist in all of Fo Shan, China. Popular throughout the community for defending the town's honor against some northerners who would like to see Fo Shon's martial arts community brought down, he and his wife (Xiong Dai Lin) and son enjoy a good life together. All of this changes when the Japanese invade and then occupy Fo Shon and claim Ip Man's mansion as their headquarters. Forced to live in squalid conditions with the rest of the population, it isn't long before he's shoveling coal just to scrape together enough money to buy a bag of rice.

It soon comes to light that General Miura (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi), the head of the occupying Japanese forces, is a big fan of Chinese martial arts. He routinely holds tournaments where Japanese and Chinese fighters square off against one another. When he sees Ip Man's skills in action, he hopes to convince him to train him and his troops, but the only ones Ip Man is willing to train are the Chinese factory workers employed by his friend Zhou Qing Quan (Simon Yam) who are routinely harassed by those aforementioned northerners in hopes that the Chinese people will defend themselves and rise up against their oppressors.

While this is an martial arts movie first and foremost, the frequent and excellent scenes of martial arts combat on display in the picture don't come at the cost of story or character development. Edmond Wong's script does a great job of letting us get to know Yen's character and to understand his obvious unrest and torment over certain events that lead up to the finale. To Yen's credit, he handles it perfectly, really emoting a lot more than we're used to seeing from him and proving that he is a much better actor than a lot of people are willing to give him credit for. His performance here is impressive on a physical level and as well as an emotional one, and he really stands out here. The quiet scenes he shares with his wife and son are touching if a bit on the melodramatic side (particularly towards the end) though not at all outside the realm of possibility, but the contemplative scenes he shares with Simon Yam's character are also just as well handled.

The martial arts sequences in the film are also top notch. With fight choreography handled by Sammo Hung, these scenes don't just serve as a vehicle for Yen to show off his fast moves and acrobatic tenacity but allow each one of the many combatants to arise in the picture to show what they're made of as well. Yen's fighting style, as fast as it looks sometimes, is almost minimalist here, with his Ip Man showing a sense of cunning and a calculating process when squaring off against his opponents. He stays calm in the face of danger and never loses his cool. It contrasts in interesting ways with far more aggressive styles shown by some of the people he finds himself fighting against, General Miura being the prime example. It's rather fascinating to watch as Ip Man's style goes from friendly sparring in which he 'fakes out' the moves that would send his opponent reeling to using the real thing on those who obviously deserve it.

While the film was obviously intended primarily for a Chinese audience (and therefore plays up to that countries nationalist pride), Yip's film doesn't wholly villainize every Japanese character nor does it glorify every Chinese man. The film plays in shades of grey rather than black and white, and the movie is all the better, and much more believable, for it. It might not be the most historically accurate film ever made (Wilson Yip has admitted so), but it doesn't need to be. It's a gripping historical drama with plenty of incredible fight scenes and the best performance we've seen yet from Donnie Yen. It's got loads of style and the substance to match. The movie won Best Film and Best Action Choreography at the Hong Kong Film Awards the year that it was released, and was nominated for ten more.

Video:

Well-Go USA presents Ip Man in an AVC encoded 1080p 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen high definition transfer that has been given some unusual color tinkering when compared to the Hong Kong Blu-ray that Universe released last year. Where that disc had a transfer that was periodically too garish and bright, this one goes the opposite route and the Well-Go release has been desaturated to the point where it almost looks black and white in spots. As to the quality of the image itself, it is sometimes remarkably detailed and crisp and other times soft and flat and devoid of much texture. Some slight edge enhancement is there, as is some slight digital scrubbing in certain scenes and if you look for compression artifacts you might see some of those as well. Neither of these factors is overpowering, but they are there and some will notice them. In the film's defense, it was made with a certain style in mind and so it shouldn't ever be the most colorful looking picture in the first place. It uses a very bleak color scheme, with a lot of grays and browns and blacks and dark blues, and parts of the film take on a very sepia toned appearance which we can probably assume was to give it a period feel. Contrast is good and skin tones are rendered fairly well and this definitely offers up more than standard definition can provide. It's not a perfect transfer, but it's good in spots if rather uneven in others.