Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

chi_town_fed This is one of the, if not the greatest martial arts films ever made. The casting, writing, choreography, and story line are all in sync. I was in awe with this movie when I first watched it and have watched it several times since. That said, I feel it dragged on a bit too long but it is still an astounding film. I think I went through every emotion at my disposal watching this film, which says a lot about the writers, actors, and directors. What a ride!!!"Karate flicks" have been around for decades. Bruce Lee transformed "Karate flicks" into a global phenomenon. His influence on-screen opened the floodgates of respect for the Asian culture and made Martial Arts mainstream around the entire globe. This amazing film is the product of Bruce Lee's achievements. In it, Donnie Yen does not disappoint!!!Donnie Yen's skills are beyond belief yet so believable. His demeanor brings a level of civility, humility, love, and courage that is unmatched. Almost everything in this movie is just right at every moment in the film with one or two exceptions. The hero is heroic without being over-bearing. He is powerful yet gentle.The wife is simply drop dead gorgeous. She was cast well and played her part. I enjoyed her various scenes and enjoyed her expressions such as her look of "Boys will be boys even when they are grown men". When she was ticked-off her husband knew it and had that "uh-oh" look on his face. She basically kept her hero husband in check. When things got rough, she was the glue that held the family together. This film captured many nuances without going off track which is simply amazing.I love true martial arts, always have. Ip Man's character is the embodiment of what martial arts is to its core. There never will be a perfect film. When it comes to a film about martial arts and more, Ip Man is as good as it gets. They are not running up walls and jumping 100 feet into the air on top of trees. The speed and agility displayed in this film without all of that stuff is incredible.I deduct one star for a somewhat clumsy sub-plot that was added but did not add to the movie and only served to make the film longer than needed.

Brian I've never been a "Kung Fu movie fan". I can appreciate and respect martial artists, especially of the various Kung Fu schools, but as far as their on-screen portrayal... not so much.It wasn't until I started to develop an interest in Wing Chun, that all references pointed me to this film. Other than Ip Man, the real "character" in this movie is his fighting style, which is what the movie is all about.To digress briefly: Wing Chun is an extreme close-range Kung Fu style that is used as a defensive means to counter an opponent's attack. It was developed by a female Shaolin Monk, as a more streamlined version of their traditional Kung Fu. It's a style intended to give the advantage to a smaller, weaker opponent in a fight, by being as efficient and direct as possible and as it's history shows, works exceedingly well. It's also a more meditative fighting form that takes pride in its spiritual roots and relies on senses, and tactics, over strength and height. People often liken it to playing a game of Chess, first, and fighting secondary.I bring this all up because, Donnie Yen captures the essence of this style to near-perfection! Like the fighting style, Ip Man, the first open teacher of it, was the living embodiment. You can see in Yen's acting, the calm, peaceful, mindfulness that separates this fighting style from others. This also makes the scenes where he unleashes hell on his opponents, even more brutal and visceral than most other action movies are when they try to portray the same types of combat.The other bonus that I'm a sucker for, is the genre. I would reluctantly call this a "Kung Fu" movie, since I feel it is more of a period drama, than an action movie. The scenery, the story, the history and the drama are all things that get layered into this movie better than any others I've seen in this same genre, and even better than many mainstream, Hollywood movies.Watching this movie, I felt the same kind of underlying, tension and anxiety building that I saw while sitting through more well known movies like "Unforgiven", "The Patriot", "The Professional" and even to some degree "Master and Commander"; any movie where you follow a hero you know can beat the snot out of someone and are just waiting for them to open up a can of whoop-ass at the right moment after they get pushed to their limit.This is far from the traditional (cheesy), over-the-top, Kung Fu action flicks from the 70's and 80's. This one actually has charisma for the characters (especially the lead role by Yen) and a strong underlying story. It's production value is also top-notch and you'd be hard-pressed to find any more flaws in it than you would with a Hollywood release.And no... the subtitles do not detract from the movie in the least!

TheBigSick This martial arts film is famous for its well-choreographed fight sequences. In a fight with ten Japanese samurai, the martial artist Donnie Yen displays his truly brilliant fighting ability. In particular, he punches the same person many times very fast in a extremely short period of time. It is called "chain punches", which is invented by Donnie Yen.

Pablo The film Ip Man follows the story of a rich martial arts enthusiast in the Chinese city of Foshan in the 1930s and 40s. Although he is the best in all of southern China, he doesn't run a martial arts school, like many of the other enthusiasts. He simply practices it because it's his passion. A northerner comes into town and beats all of the schools in the area in an attempt to show the superiority of northern fighting styles, open his own school, and get rich. He ends up challenging Ip Man and loses. Shortly after, Japan invades China in 1937. This marks the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and later WWII. Ip Man's estate is confiscated by the Japanese and turned into their headquarters in Foshan. He, along with his family and friends, is forced to live in decrepit apartments and abject poverty. Ip Man manages to find a job in a coal mine and helps defend a cotton mill his friend invested in from a group of Chinese bandits lead by the northern martial artist from the beginning of the film. General Miura, the Japanese general in charge of Foshan holds daily martial arts duels between the Chinese citizens and Japanese trainees. If the Chinese participant wins, he is granted a bag of rice. Ip Man eventually challenges Miura after he is ordered to teach the Japanese trainees his superior form of martial arts. Ip Man defeats Miura and is later shot in the shoulder. He survives and successfully escapes to Hong Kong with his family as the war ends. Overall, I liked almost every aspect of this film. It was action packed and although the storyline was a little cheesy and cliché it was still captivating. Not once did this movie manage to bore me. The only time the movie was hard to watch was during the one or two sad scenes where someone would die. One thing I noticed is that the death scenes were very emotional and somewhat exaggerated. The cinematography and choreography were very impressive as all of the fight scenes appeared very well practiced and professional. I expected it to be a less serious, more fun movie being about martial arts and such, but it ended up being really good. Also, this movie opened my eyes to the Japanese atrocities towards the Chinese in WWII. I had always heard of them but never really researched them at all and I think this movie did a good job of at least portraying what the typical life of a typical Chinese man was during the second world war. I had heard of this movie before multiple times but never came around to watching it. I'm glad I picked it for my final.