Ip Man Villain Who Would Have Suited Donnie Yen

Donnie Yen has faced many great martial artists in the Ip Man films, but one kung fu battle with an MMA fighter was an opportunity the series squandered. The Ip Man films directed by Donnie Yen tell the story of Bruce Lee’s legendary Wing Chun kung fu mentor, though admittedly they convey a heavily fictionalized version of Ip Man’s life story. Donnie Yen may have put the final stamp on Ip Man’s cinematic portrayals with his performance, but the Ip Man films also made sure he wasn’t the only standout martial artist in the film.

In the entire Ip Man franchise, the list of martial artists portraying Ip Man’s opponents is huge. Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Fan Siu-wong, Darren Shahlavi, Max Zhang and Scott Adkins put up tough fights with Ip Man, and Zhang even hosted the spin-off Master Z: Ip Man’s Legacy. Yet for all the well-deserved popularity of Yen’s Ip Man films starring Bruce Lee (played by Danny Chan as an adult), Ip Man has been the subject of a significant number of martial arts films in the 21st century, including 2013’s The Grandmaster. , which used a single cast that would be perfect against Yen.

As a competitive kung fu sanda, kickboxing, and MMA champion, Kung Le has also brought his skills to martial arts films, with Le playing the centerpiece of Ip Man (Tony Leung) in the Grandmaster’s opening fight scene. What would make Le such a great martial artist to use in Yen’s Ip Man movies is that Max Zhang was also in Grandmaster before he got into Ip Man 3 (after the initial Donnie Yen’s reluctance to watch Ip Man 3). Also, an early fight scene between Yen and Le in the 2010 Hong Kong film Bodyguards and Assassins gives an idea of what a duel between the two in an Ip Man film might have looked like.

Ip Man: The 12 Best Fight Scenes From The Movies

A Donnie Yen-Cung Le Rematch Could’ve Been One Of Ip Man’s Best Battles

Le’s fight with Yen in Bodyguards and Assassins is the action highlight of the film, and would have enabled an Ip Man movie with Le’s involvement to market on a particular angle that martial arts fans love to see: cinematic rematches between martial arts stars. Following their first big-screen brawl in 2005’s Sha Po Lang (aka Kill Zone), Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung’s table-top kung fu match in Ip Man 2 homaged Jet Li’s Fearless and was pushed heavily for the rematch it was. Le’s background in the MMA world also could have given an Ip Man fight sequence with he and Yen another beneficial element.

In addition to his contributions to Wing Chun’s popularity through the Ip Man films, Donnie Yen is a well-known MMA enthusiast and helped bring MMA-based fight choreography into Hong Kong action movies with Sha Po Lang and Flash Point. A genuine MMA fighter like Cung Le in a fight with Ip Man could have given Yen a chance to bring the Wing Chun master’s skills into an MMA-style fight decades in advance. Even better, the young Bruce Lee witnessing the fight might have even planted some fictionalized seeds for Bruce Lee’s creation of Jeet Kune Do, often regarded as similar in principle to MMA.

The Ip Man movies remain martial arts classics across the board. Still, Donnie Yen and Cung Le not only delivered excellent action scenes in their individual Ip Man movies, but a quite exhilarating one together in Bodyguards and Assassins. The fact that Donnie Yen’s Ip Man movies never managed to work in a rematch between him and Cung Le is one of their few losses in their martial arts sequences.