One of the best martial arts films of all time would have to be Ip Man (2008), starring Donnie Yen and directed by Wilson Yip. Their sequel two years later was also stellar, and within the same year Director Herman Yau released The Legend is Born: Ip Man, which I have yet to see, but was apparently well received. Now, Director Herman Yau and veteran actor Anthony Wong, along with Jordan Chan, Eric Tsang, Xin Xin Xiong, and Gillian Chung star in what is likely to be the final Ip Man movie for the foreseeable future. The movie has some narration by an actor posing as Chun Man, Ip’s son, who helps transition between blocks of years in Ip’s life. The story begins with Ip moving to Hong Kong after losing so much in his homeland due to the Japanese invasion. While reluctant at first, he does eventual open an unadvertised school to make a modest living and to appease the request of many eager pupils.
Ip Man: The Final Fight spends a considerable amount of time with the master-student relationship, and the relationship between Ip and his wife, and the woman that would take care of him after his wife’s passing (much to the chagrin of his pupils). The labor issues in Hong Kong at the time take center-stage and are the source of much drama for Ip’s pupils, and by extension, Ip himself. The sudden loss of his wife and the relationship with “The Northern Lady” as his son would call her, are also a major focal point in these latter years of Ip’s life. And of course, layered within the constant drama are fight scenes that involve his students and Ip himself on several occasions. The best of these scenes is that between Anthony Wong and Eric Tsang, who plays Master Ng. The two meet on disagreeable ground after their students quarrel, but after a bout, the two masters become good friends. As far as the movie’s subtitle, the final fight, you could construe this as being the literal final battle between Ip and his students against a local triad leader (Dragon, played by Xin Xin Xiong), or Ip’s own battle with age and a chronic stomach illness. The combination of drama, action, and the sadness related to Ip’s death make for a movie that is captivating, even if not as outright entertaining as the two Donnie Yen Ip Man films.
The presentation quality on Blu-ray is excellent. Once you get past the admittedly intriguing trailers for upcoming Asian films in 2014, a pleasant and cleanly designed menu awaits. Options include Play, Chapters, Setup, Bonus, and Previews. Within Setup, the Audio track can be toggled between Cantonese 5.1 DTS-HDMA, Cantonese 2.0 (Stereo), English HD DTS 5.1, and English 2.0 (Stereo). Only English subtitles are included. The extra features are comprised of the following:
-Making Of (HD, 9m24s) – This is a pretty typical ‘making of’ feature, but it’s sort of cobbled together in that it seems to be a bunch of one to two minute snips that were fused together. The reason I say this is that the name of the movie and the studio logos pop-up constantly. Expect cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes footage, with much if not all of this being re-used in the Cast & Crew Interviews feature. I did learn that the biggest fight scene took ten hours to film and for the Wong/Tsang fight scene no extras were used, so that was interesting.
-Cast & Crew Interviews – These are all in HD and total about twenty minutes. Included here are producer Checkley Sin, Marvel Chow, Liu Kai-chi, Eric Tsang, Li Chung-chi (Action Choreographer), Xiong Xin-xin, Wong Cho-lam, Anita Yuen, Gillian Chung, Jordan Chan, and Anthony Wong. Fortunately, and a bit to my surprise, Anthony Wong’s interview is the longest, not the shortest, which you may have expected as I did. These segments are all between about forty seconds and up to five minutes as in the case with Wong. A significant amount of these interviews are used in the “making of” feature, too.
-Trailers – Both the US and International trailers are offered, both in HD, and with runtimes of 1m46s and 2m07s respectively.
With that, let’s get to the summary…
