Donnie Yen’s Ip Man movies are among the best martial arts movies ever released, though some are certainly better than others. How do they rank?
The Ip Man movies are beloved among martial arts film fans, but the quality of each installment varies. First getting underway in 2008 and wrapping up in 2019, the Ip Man series has become the stuff of legend while being the ultimate love letter to the art of Wing Chun kung fu. Furthermore, it would also launch Donnie Yen to global stardom.
Although well-known in the Hong Kong film industry since the 1980s, Yen truly began his rise to greater recognition with the release Sha Po Lang and Flash Point. However, Ip Man would shoot his career to the moon with his portrayal of the famed mentor of the legendary Bruce Lee, with Yen later appearing Hollywood films like Rogue One:
A Star Wars Story, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, and Mulan. Today, Donnie Yen has become a huge action star , with the Ip Man series now standing as one of the landmark martial arts series of all time.
Though the Ip Man movies would reach their conclusion with 2019’s Ip Man 4: The Finale, its impact on martial arts films is simply impossible to deny. Decades from now, the entire franchise is sure to be looked back on with the same reverence that it currently holds, with not a single entry being anywhere near lackluster. Needless to say, Donnie Yen’s performance in the title role, and in the series’ incredible Wing Chun-powered action scenes, is a central aspect of the acclaim it continues to receive.
5. Master Z: Ip Man Legacy
The strength of the Ip Man series would be cemented with the debut of the spinoff Master Z: Ip Man Legacy, focusing on Ip Man 3’s breakout character Cheung Tin-chi with Max Zhang reprising the role. After his loss to Ip Man in the previous movie, Cheung set aside his prior quest for Wing Chun supremacy to simply bring up his young son, when his defense of a young woman indebted to a local crime lord lands him a job at a nightclub, while also forcing him to rise to the occasion once more when the local gang conflict flares up. After strengthening Ip Man 3 as Cheung, Max Zhang carries the spinoff all on his own as a man who has both fallen from the top and who fully acknowledges that his own hubris put him there. At its heart, Master Z is a moving story of a father caring for his son, a redemption film, and a gangster flick all rolled together, and it does a solid job of blending the three.RELATED:
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Several other action stars also appear in Master Z, including Michelle Yeoh as the reformed gangster Tso Ngan Kwan, Tony Jaa as the nimble assassin Sadi, and Dave Bautista as the fearsome crime boss Owen Davidson, along with original Ip Man star Shi Yan Neng (credited as Xing Yu) in the new role of Cheung’s close friend Fu. With such a physically talent cast, the abundant martial arts fights are as energetic and thrilling as fans could expect. Cheung’s battles with Sadi and Davidson especially stand out, while Yeoh hasn’t lost a step either, as seen in the movie’s wild machete battle. While more of a side-story from the mainline Ip Man series, Master Z is still loads of action-packed fun, and with the primary continuity have come to close, the franchise could certainly do worse than to continue on with Cheung Tin-chi in center stage.
4. Ip Man 3
Ip Man 3 was the point where the series had become the biggest contemporary Asian action franchise. After two movies of teases and off-hand mentions, Ip Man 3 finally brought Bruce Lee in the mix, with famed Bruce Lee-lookalike Danny Chan portraying the title character’s most famous student. Though his appearance is brief, it’s nevertheless crucial in the larger context of Ip Man’s story, showing him recognizing Lee’s innate prowess and boundless energy in an early sequence that finds a clever middle ground between a training montage and an actual fight. Though Lee was largely in the periphery of Ip Man series, seeing renowned master and student come face-to-face brings with it a big geek-out factor. Mike Tyson would also appear as local American property owner Frank, giving Ip Man a run for his money in one of the film’s action scenes.
Additionally, the movie also brought Max Zhang into the story as Cheung Tin-chi, a fellow Wing Chun exponent who at once admires and envies Ip Man, while making it his goal to outdo him. He’s certainly no sinister villain, and his popularity was such to lead to the aforementioned Master Z spinoff, while his motivations are far easier to empathize with than any other Ip Man antagonist. Within the scope of the entire series, Ip Man 3 is the only film that is more consequential towards the antagonist’s story – Cheung having to be guided by the hero away from his aggressive efforts to prove his worth, though Ip Man himself deals with his own emotional battle learning of his wife’s cancer. The gap was a long one between the second and third Ip Man at five years, but the latter emerged as a worthy entry into the series nonetheless.
3. Ip Man 4: The Finale
Wrapping the Ip Man series up for the 2019 holiday season, Ip Man 4: The Finale brought the action to America to bring the series to a close. Following the passing of his wife, Ip Man battles both racism and his own cancer while trying start a new life for his son in 1960s San Francisco. Ip Man 4 is easily the most Bruce Lee-heavy of the series, showing Ip Man’s pupil growing in prominence in the American martial arts community. It even side-steps from the main story for a back alley battle with local Karate fighters that’s one of the best action sequences of the whole series, with Ip Man himself a spectator to it. Stories of battling oppression and bigotry are hardly uncommon in Hong Kong cinema, but Ip Man 4 brings those themes front and center in an American setting, with the always diplomatic Ip Man combating the rampant racism faced by Chinese immigrants.
Of course, with Ip Man 4 openly declaring itself the end of the franchise, going out on a high note was a must, so the villainous mantle of the film falling to Scott Adkins as American Marine sergeant Barton Geddes and Chris Collins as Marine Karate coach Colin Frater was clearly a wise decision. A former U.S. Marine himself, Collins is a force to be reckoned with as an emerging big-screen martial artist, while Adkins gives quite possibly his craziest, over-the-top performance ever as the vicious Geddes. Fans of both Yen and Adkins had been eager to see them face-off for years, and the two more than lived up to such long-awaited expectations (and in the same year where Adkins would fight both Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais in Triple Threat, no less). A heartfelt ending to the story of its hero, Ip Man 4 brought the franchise to an emotionally powerful conclusion with tons of excellent Wig Chun action along the way.
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2. Ip Man 2
After the worldwide acclaim of the first Ip Man, a follow-up was a foregone conclusion, with Ip Man 2 arriving in 2010 and very effectively upping the stakes. Having relocated with his family from Foshan to Hong Kong, Ip Man attempts to establish himself as a Wing Chun instructor, and encounters new challenges from both the bureaucratic practices of the local kung fu masters and British boxer Taylor “The Twister” Milos, played by Darren Shahlavi. The former conflict is what the movie’s first half is primarily devoted to, with Ip Man literally having to fight teachers of various disciplines to earn his place among the local martial arts community. Needless to say, the highlight here is Ip Man’s battle with Hung Gar master Hung, played by Sammo Hung. This is probably the point of the series where its periodic usage of wire-fu stretches believability the most, but it’s a true sight to see when Ip Man and Master Hung deflect and counter attack one another’s strikes with machine gun-speed.
Darren Shahlavi tragically passed away in 2015, and Ip Man 2 will forever remain on his greatest hits collection of the kind of domineering, laser-focused villains he embodied in movies like Bloodmoon and his portrayal of Kano in season 1 of Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Twister is an out-and-out sadist with all the ferocity of Ivan Drago and a far more unhinged personality. The ring fights in Ip Man 2 are some of the series’ most brutal, especially when Master Hung’s asthma catches up to him right when Twister is determined to win at any cost. True to his peaceful character, Ip Man himself has little interest in fighting the belligerent boxer until the situation demands that he step up, and it’s a marvel of Wing Chun and boxing action and one of the most visibly challenging fights Ip Man has ever had to take on. Naturally, Ip Man 2 never would’ve been complete without its ending cameo of the young Bruce Lee, with Ip Man telling him to return when he’s matured a bit more.
1. Ip Man
The 2008 original that started it all, Ip Man became one of the most beloved martial arts films ever made and finally made Donnie Yen a household name. The mild-mannered Wing Chun master Ip Man is a man whose fighting skills border on superhuman, and yet he’s consistently the most peaceful and kind-hearted character in the film. Whether he’s battling the aggression of Fan Siu-wong’s Jin Shanzhao (who would become his ally in Ip Man 2) or Japanese General Miura, played by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Ip Man is a story about a man trying to maintain his pacifism in a world that will not allow it. In comparison to the tougher characters he’s known for, Donnie Yen’s portrayal of Ip Man would become one of the most enduring martial arts movie heroes the world has seen, while the Ip Man theme itself now instantly bringing to mind the image of him training with a wooden dummy.
Ip Man brought with it the same impact as Ong Bak, Flash Point, and The Raid, setting a completely new benchmark for martial arts action. The in-fighting and chain-punching of Wing Chun had simply never been seen before at this level, with the action scenes only getting wilder and more frenetic as the movie progresses. Ip Man has probably never cut loose as much as in his one-man takedown of a group of Karate black belts, one poor fellow getting chain-punched right into the floor and the sequence concluding with the powerful line, “I’m just a Chinese man”. The success of Ip Man would spawn the the franchise that followed it and even numerous other Ip Man-centered action movies, and the whole series is essential viewing for any lover of Asian cinema or martial arts films. The entire franchise is a true thrill to journey through, but the original Ip Man remains the best.