IP MAN (Hong Kong, 2008)
Directed by: Wilson Yip
Starring: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Fan Siu-wong

Denied their chance to make a movie about Bruce Lee thanks to his family's tight control of the Bruce Lee image, producers in Hong Kong got the idea of making a movie about his master, Ip Man, back in 2007. Rival Ip Man projects multiplied like horny rabbits, but it was Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen, working with action choreographer and martial arts legend, Sammo Hung, who hit the big screen first. The result? IP MAN, a movie that sucked money out of pockets all across Asia and launched the "Ip Man wave" which now includes projects by Wong Kar-wai (GRANDMASTER IP MAN, coming in 2011), prequels (THE LEGEND IS BORN: IP MAN with Sammo Hung and Bruce Leung coming in summer 2010) and sequels, IP MAN 2 (the opening night film of NYAFF 2010). But the first IP MAN still has an energy and a frission that none of the other projects can match.

Foshan, 1935: Ip Man is a happy guy who lives in a nice house with his wife and kid, occasionally resorting to a little kung fu to teach folks what’s what. He can take apart a gun or beat down a punk with a “Please,” an “After you,” and a “Thank you for letting me win.” Enter Fan Siu-wong (STORY OF RICKY) playing Master Jin, a redneck kung fu killer looking to set up shop on Dojo Street after beating all the local martial artists. He tears through them like they’re a bunch of paper napkins and his path of destruction leads him to Donnie’s doorstep, and it’s on. Donnie is the chiropractor, giving adjustments and aligning spines with his rock hammer fists, a serene smile on his lips. By the time it's over, Master Jin is a pile of jelly and Ip Man is a local legend.

Then the Japanese arrive. Uh-oh, it’s World War II. Like the real Ip Man, Donnie refuses to teach the Japanese wing chun. Unlike the real Ip Man he refuses their offer by taking on a dozen Japanese karate experts and beating them until all their joints are popped out of socket and they're crying, "Uncle!" Needless to say, he's gotta move. The film ends with him on his way to Hong Kong and his date with a young Bruce Lee. But you'll have to catch IP MAN 2 to see it.

IP MAN 2 (Hong Kong, 2010)
Directed by: Wilson Yip
Starring: Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Simon Yam, Fan Siu-wong

This is the summer blockbuster you've been waiting for. Everything that was good about IP MAN, is better in IP MAN 2. Everything that was big, is bigger. Everything that was butt-kicking, is now butt-kicking on a scale so cosmic that the second you buy a ticket to this flick, your own tailbone will start to ache. It's a career highlight for all three of the creative forces involved: star Donnie Yen, co-star and action choreographer, Sammo Hung, and director Wilson Yip. It's a rousing Canto-fable, a Hong Kong empowerment movie, a return to old school martial arts filmmaking with AVATAR era production values, and on its opening weekend it beat IRON MAN 2 at the box office like a redheaded stepchild.

No knowledge of IP MAN 1 is necessary. Driven out of Foshan by the Japanese, we pick up the Ip Man story in 1949 as Master Ip (Donnie Yen) arrives in Hong Kong. Wife pregnant, money short, friends scarce, he sets up a martial arts school but no Hong Kong people want to study with the weird, tea-sipping dude from China walking around in his old fashioned changshan while puffing a cigarette. It doesn't take long to figure out the problem: Master Hung (Sammo Hung) runs the martial arts schools in Hong Kong with an iron fist. They're all paying him "fees" that he's passing on to the corrupt British police force so they'll leave the kung fu clubs alone. Donnie ain't having any of that, and soon enough he's standing on a rickety table in a tea house, putting down masters one by one in order to purchase his right to teach wing chun with payments made in nothing but knuckles.

Wing chun is the sissy kung fu, invented by a Buddhist nun and long derided in the martial world. But it's what Ip Man taught Bruce Lee and it's what Sammo Hung has spent a large part of his career extolling. Fluid and graceful, where every attack is a defense, IP MAN 1 and 2 make the case that while wing chun may have been invented by Buddhist nuns, these particular Buddhist nuns were not fooling around. During a fight in a fish market, Donnie Yen does for wooden loading pallets what Bruce Lee did for nunchucks and whether he's getting punched in the face or scrounging for money he glows with a natural dignity.

Donnie Yen was born to play Ip Man, and he inhabits the role like it's been waiting for him all his life, the same way Jet Li finally came into his own when he played that other hero from Foshan, Wong Fei-hung in ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. And speaking of dignity, Sammo Hung oozes dignity and gravitas from every pore. He's always been a ferocious fighter but in IP MAN 2 he gets a career-topping bout in a boxing ring that's grittier than anything he's done in years. But more than that, Sammo feels like a living link back to the Chinese tradition of martial arts as a sport that embodied all that was good about Chinese culture. IP MAN 2 manages to get that across, while bringing audiences to their feet again and again in one rousing set piece after another. Anyone can instantly follow this story, so don't let the fact that it's a sequel scare you away. In fact, just think of that 2 in IP MAN 2 as a way of saying it's twice as good as any other movie that's currently on the market.