For someone with such a superior aura, it’s unconvincing that he would try to oust Ip for reasons as banal as money or jealousy. His behavior seesaws between decent and self-serving, yet there’s no moral or psychological complexity underlying that ambivalence. Yet, for an opponent worthy of the grandmaster in stature and martial prowess, Edmond Wong’s screenplay is inexcusably skimpy on Cheung’s personal history or motives. His aggressive fighting style acting as a foil to Yen’s measured responses, Zhang has a remarkable ability to invigorate a scene, turning every brief appearance into a tantalizing buildup to the spectacular final showdown. Despite playing second fiddle as he did in “SPL 2: A Time for Consequences,” Zhang gives his role class just by flexing his knuckles with characteristic coolness. This leads to two pandemoniac action set pieces in a shipyard that fondly recall the ice factory rough-and-tumbles in Bruce Lee’s action debut, “The Big Boss.”Īt each critical moment, Cheung, who competes at Frank’s underground boxing club, ends up reluctantly fighting on Ip’s side, yet his ambitions makes him increasingly restive. However, the devious Sang finds ways to ambush them. Ip and his pupils set up a patrol squad to guard the school against vandalism. Ching gets into a scrap with classmate Fong (Cui Can), which leads to an acquaintance with Fong’s father, Cheung Tin-chi (Max Zhang, aka Zhang Jin), a rickshaw man who turns out to be his Wing Chun alumni.Īmerican property boss and all-around-evil-foreigner Frank (Tyson) employs local mobster Brother Sang (Patrick Tam, hammily despicable) to seize Ching and Fong’s school for redevelopment. Ip Man, Wing-sing and their youngest son, Ching (Li Xiaolong), are living in relative comfort, although almost nothing is said about how they fared in the interim.
Picking up nine years after the previous film, “Ip Man 3” opens in 1959 - a prosperous era for Hong Kong as its manufacturing and shipping industries take off. In “Ip Man 2,” at least there was a subplot related to disciple Wong Leung (Huang Xiaoming), while here there’s no interaction with any but one of his faceless students. Although he strikes a heavy-hearted note, Yip details their reserved affection with a tenderly non-verbal touch by having them communicate through leftover food and notes jotted on bits of paper.Īlthough Yen continues to refine his gentlemanly persona with a mellow, dry sense of humor, the yarn provides no indication of his evolving mastery of Wing Chun, or the methods of teaching that eventually made the school one of the most practiced worldwide. The third outing devotes more time to Ip’s relationship with his now ailing wife, Wing-sing (Lynn Hung). The original dramatized the protag’s early life of landed gentry and anti-Japanese resistance in Foshan, Guangzhou the sequel followed his family’s migration to Hong Kong, where he began his teaching career and dusted up British colonialists. With Yen counting this as his last full-blown action performance, it’s also a swan song of sorts. Notwithstanding the legendary star’s absence, this body of work has morphed into a homage to the heyday of Hong Kong chopsocky cinema, reaching back to the influences of Lau Ka-leung’s hardcore style and Lee’s classics (the stunt casting of Mike Tyson here recalls Kareen Abdul-Jabbar turn in “The Game of Death”).
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