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Ip Man 2 (2010)

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Posted on May 31, 2010 by James

This is certainly no tame squeakquel.

More an exuberant throwback to fan-favourite 1980s Hong Kong martial arts movies, with fight scene stacked upon fight scene, shamelessly caricatured gwailo villains, a breezily achieved period setting, and at times (e.g. the fish market) quite thrilling fight choreography. Flawed, without a doubt. Cheesy, yes. The plot is uninspired, the violence unnecessarily excessive at times (Sammo’s face gets a real work out) and there’s emotionally flat filler like the re-introduction of Simon Yam’s character. … (read more)

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Ip Man (2008)

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Posted on February 15, 2009 by Justin

With Ip Man, Donnie Yen takes on his meatiest role yet. He’s played the central hero before (in Iron Monkey and in the miniseries of Fist of Fury, for example) but they’ve all been a bit over the top: period-era takes on the unstoppable leather-jacketed Donnie we know from most of his films. The title character of this film, however, is a quiet young kungfu master of 1930’s Foshan, born into privilege and not a willing participant in … (read more)

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