Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Ip Man 4: The Finale Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 3, 2020

Do they (whomever “they” may be) really expect anyone to believe that The Finale subtitle appended to Ip Man 4? As I’ve now recounted in several previous reviews, there is certainly no dearth of Ip Man related content out there, including (but not necessarily limited to) Ip Man (also available in a Collector’s Edition as Ip Man), Ip Man 2 (also available in a Collector’s Edition as Ip Man 2), Ip Man 3 (this one kind of strangely without a Collector’s Edition), The Legend Is Born: Ip Man, Ip Man: The Final Fight, The Grandmaster, Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy and Ip Man: Season One. Not all of these are part of the Donnie Yen films about Ip Man, but the Yen films, along with several others mentioned above, have not always felt themselves restrained by the actual facts of Ip Man's life, and so having yet another Ip Man property starring Yen trotted out may strike some (no martial arts pun intended) as being unnecessary. That said, while certainly indulging in what is probably a fair amount of fictionalizing, this supposed "final chapter" in the Ip Man saga has some great fight scenes and an engaging enough through line which unites Ip Man (Donnie Yen) with arguably his most famous student, Bruce Lee (Danny Chan), while also doling out some interesting (if perhaps at times questionable) information about Ip Man's efforts to get Wing Chun added as a training regimen for the United States armed forces.

What may strike some as a bit funny about Ip Man 4: The Finale is how several other Ip Man films have dealt with the latter years of the hero’s life, at least in passing, and yet not one of them to my recall (and I may have frankly shut something out at this point) gets into Ip’s supposed trip to San Francisco in the mid- sixties, which leads to a host of subplots involving (at least tangentially) Bruce Lee and (more centrally) the Marines. I did some cursory Googling in preparation for writing this review, and I certainly didn’t come across any authoritative information stating any piece of this setup might have actually occurred, but I did come across a salient bit of “information” in one article, which had a kind of funny quote that many of the Ip Man films deal with things that “might have happened”.

Perhaps even a bit more oddly, at least for American audiences, is that one of this film’s putative “villains” is a martinet Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps named Barton Geddes (Scott Adkins), who is averse to adding Chinese martial arts to the training mix, though kind of hilariously he doesn’t mind other Asian efforts like karate. This character might have been a cool hero in another enterprise with a little toning down, since he’s attempting to whip his troops into shape and get them ready in case they need to fight the enemy in hand to hand combat. As it is, this seems designed to set up a kind of analog between various fighting styles (since you just know Geddes and Ip are going to end up skirmishing) that may be at least somewhat reminiscent of the showdown between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon.

That element may be passingly interesting if perhaps fanciful, but Ip Man 4: The Finale arguably tries to stuff just a few too many subplots into the mix. Ip is not in the best of health (to say the least), his son is a problem (part of the plot dynamics revolves around Ip looking for a San Francisco school for his boy), there are nefarious anti-Chinese efforts by immigration officials, and a whole minor sidebar featuring Bruce Lee. Unless some expert comes along to disabuse me of any notions I have about the film’s basis in fact, I’ll simply say Ip Man 4: The Finale often strains credulity, but also offers some fun set pieces and does end (minor spoiler alert) with Ip’s death (which is not the first time this particular event has been depicted in an Ip Man film, for those not keeping track). That might suggest that any sequel is going to be one of those Asian fantasy films featuring a spirit fighting demons.

Ip Man 4: The Finale Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ip Man 4: The Finale is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. According to the IMDb, this was shot with various Arri Alexa models and finished at a 2K DI. Aside from what looks to me like almost comically bad greenscreen in a couple of moments, this is a sharp and well detailed looking presentation that offers consistently high fine detail levels in elements like fabrics of costumes and even some of the background textures on walls. There's some highly stylized work here, including some almost odd framings of Geddes with his troops and the palette has been variously tweaked at times (as can perhaps be made out in some of the screenshots included with this review), but overall clarity levels are quite striking throughout the presentation. Some of the grading and/or lighting toward peach and yellow tones is quite evocative at times.

Ip Man 4: The Finale Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ip Man 4: The Finale features a really effective and at times quite bombastic Dolby Atmos track in the original Cantonese (there's a lot of English in the "Cantonese" track courtesy of all of the American characters, but there's also a completely English track on this disc in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1). While the film's glut of narrative threads means there are some relatively expository moments where surround activity can be limited to occasional ambient environmental sounds, when one of the film's handful or so of set pieces erupts, the track is undeniably energetic, with good placement of both horizontal and vertical effects. While some smackdowns have considerable punch (sonically speaking), the only place where some might have liked a bit more activity is with regard to LFE. Dialogue is presented cleanly, though when Yen speaks English, it's obviously fairly heavily accented.

Ip Man 4: The Finale Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (1080i; 2:11)


• The 10 Year Legend (1080p; 2:10)


• The Story (1080i; 2:26)


• Trailer A (1080p; 1:31)


• Trailer B (1080p; 1:21)


• US Trailer (1080p; 1:49)

Ip Man 4: The Finale Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Considering how divorced from the actual historical record this film apparently is, Ip Man 4: The Finale could have just as easily sent Ip Man into space to battle Moon Monsters a la some old Ray Harryhausen effort, and heaven knows, that may be the next Ip Man entry coming down the pike. Of course I'm joking, but in all seriousness, as fanciful as much of Ip Man: The Finale probably inarguably is, it's actually quite entertaining and manages to deliver even a glint or two of real emotion. The seemingly Dorian Gray-esque Yen is as engaging as ever in the role, and it is kind of fun to see Adkins as such an unrepentant badass Marine. Technical merits are solid, and with caveats noted, Ip Man 4: The Finale comes Recommended.