Many big screen biographies are often accused of taking…liberties…with the facts, often to help the finished film’s pacing. After all, unless it’s a TV mini-series, it’s difficult to compress a remarkable life into an evening at the movies. Film makers will frequently switch the order of events along with the popular practice of using composite characters (a little bit of this fella’, and a bit of this old pal, and…), even inventing supporting roles, or tagging real folks with invented names. And then there are fantasy tales using a real person (and elements of his life) as the story’s heroic center. In Hollywood famous true Western outlaws like Billy the Kid and Jesse James were the leads in many fictional flicks (hey, those two “met” Dracula and Frankenstein’s daughter!). Those on the opposite side of the law like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson got their share of screen time, to say nothing of the Davy Crockett craze created by Walt Disney is the 1950’s. Lawmen of later years were also at the center of media franchises like Elliot Ness in “The Untouchables” and Buford Pusser in “Walking Tall”. Well, a similar film and TV feeding frenzy has been going on for the last dozen or so years over in China with the legend of a real man named Yip Kai-man, perhaps known best as Ip Man. He was the martial artists master (his specialty was Wing Chun) who trained silver screen icon Bruce Lee. Ip was the subject of 2013’s Oscar nominated THE GRANDMASTER. And since he was not a fictitious (and copyrighted) figure, many other Asian studios have made competing flicks (even a weekly TV show). The most popular may be the film series begun in 2008 starring Donnie Yen (BLADE II, and the upcoming ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY). The current (and supposedly final installment) takes us into the master fight trainer’s time in 1950’s Hong Kong with IP MAN 3.
To be precise, it’s HK circa 1959 and Ip Man (Yen) is running a martial arts training center while sharing a home with wife Cheung Wing-Sing (Lynn Hung) and seven year-old son Ip Ching (Wang Yasn Shi). After a scene in which an aggressive young man tries to become one of Ip’s students (we find out later that he is really…no spoilers from me!), we see Ching engaged in a schoolyard smack down with another classmate. When Ip and his wife are called into the principal’s office (the other lad’s pop is stuck at work), Ip has the boys shake hands and invites the other boy, Fung, to their home for dinner. After the meal, Fung’s father, Tin-chi (Jin Zhang) arrives to pick up his son. Tin has a rickshaw service, but hopes to open his own training center (he compliments Ip on his skills). Later we find out that Tin supplements his income by fighting in a black market boxing match organized by gangster Ma King-sang (Patrick Tam), who also works for a “foreign devil”, a shady American property developer named Frank (Mike Tyson…yes that ole ear-chomper!). Franks has his eye on some land , namely the school where Ching and Fung attend. When Ma and his gang of thugs try to strong-arm the principal to sign over the deed to the school, IP intervenes. His policeman pal, Sergeant ‘Fatso’ Po (Kent Cheng) can offer little help: the force is short-handed and his commanding office, another foreign devil, is in Frank’s pocket. Ip, along with his students, will guard the school. This time away from home makes Wing feel neglected and contributes to her worsening health. Ip tries to keep his family together as his duty brings him into a showdown with Frank and eventual rival Tin.
While the aforementioned GRANDMASTER was the art house/critical darling, this would be the more family friendly version of this real life icon, perhaps one that could easily play on TV (hmmm, makes me wonder about the actual Ip TV show). The two recent RAID films brought back a real sense of danger and brutality to martial arts movies with deadly, bloody bone crunching blows causing true damage to the battlers, but here no one appears to get terribly hurt. The school principal has some jaw bruising and one of Ip’s pals has his arm in a sling. The highly planned fights nearly remind one of the 60’s Batman TV show, with the bad guys getting knocked out quickly (we almost expect animated stars and cartoon birds circling their noggins). Another almost camp element is the near endless army at Ma and Frank’s beck and call. Once Ip and his cohorts take a battle stance, endless streams of thugs come charging from every alley and doorway (a cliche so expertly parodied in the “A Fistful of Yen” segment in 1977’s KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE). The US ads feature Tyson prominently, but he has just around five or six minutes of screen time. And yes, he does speak English most of the time, with a few Chinese phrases tossed in (luckily it’s all subtitled for us). Still, he’s an impressive, scary screen presence, although it’s doubtful that his brute force could match Ip’s speed and skills (prior to this showdown, he has easily taken out dozens of men). But their three-minute brawl is not the film’s showcase scene. Rather it’s the finale’s throw down with Tin as they go from swinging long “dragon poles” to “butterfly swords” (right from the chefs at Benihanna) and finishing with precise hand to hand combat. Happily some of the action is slowed down, but never excessively so we can appreciate the swiftness of the very impressive Mr. Yen (for a fella’ in his fifties he’s still got the moves). Though the story gets a tad goofy at times (Ip will repair his marriage by learning a newskill…ballroom dancing!), “chop-socky” fanatics should enjoy the action set pieces cause in IP MAN 3 “everybody’s kung-fu fightin'” and they’re “faster than lightnin'”.
2.5 Out of 5
IP MAN 3 opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Wehrenberg’s Ronnies 20 Cine
