Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

The Legend Is Born: Ip Man Blu-ray Movie Review

Everybody Wing Chun tonight.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 23, 2011

The venerable old adage goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” But is there an adage for when success comes right off the bat? Maybe something along the lines of, “If at first you succeed, just keep doing the same thing over and over”? Of course nothing breeds repeated trips to well in the land of moviemaking like box office returns, and the writing was on the silk screen when 2008’s Ip Man, a fictionalized biography of the martial arts master who helped train Bruce Lee, catapulted to the Top 5 hits in Asian markets (it still resides in the Top 15 for films released that year). Ip Man ended up winning Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist and/or martial arts expert to figure out a sequel would be in the offing. While Ip Man 2 didn’t receive quite the critical rapturous praise the first Ip Man had, it was largely well regarded and once again raked in copious dough at the box office. (You can read Martin Liebman’s review of the first Ip Man here and my review of Ip Man 2 here). The Legend is Born: Ip Man is ostensibly unrelated to the two Donnie Yen starrers, though it’s interesting to note that the actor playing the young Ip Man in this film, Dennis To, bears more than a slight resemblance to Yen, certainly no mere coincidence. Be that as it may, The Legend is Born: Ip Man takes us back to the early years of Ip Man’s life, with a brief prelude showing Ip Man as a child being introduced to the martial arts technique known as Wing Chun, a technique which he seems to have almost a genetic propensity for mastering. After that introduction, we segue to Ip Man’s life as a young adult as he leaves his home of Foshan to continue his studies in Hong Kong. A somewhat convoluted romantic triangle (perhaps more accurately a romantic rectangle) rears its ugly head as Ip Man continues to learn innovative new martial arts techniques which will ultimately put him at loggerheads with adherents of a more orthodox style of Wing Chun.

The Legend is Born: Ip Man may be the least factual of any of the three (so far) Ip Man “biographical” films, with added, obviously fictionalized, characters and a story arc that makes Ip Man’s family (at least with regard to an interpolated adopted brother) part and parcel of the long simmering contentious relationship between China and Japan. The whole Japanese-Chinese conflict, which of course plays out in the other Ip Man films, is seen here in a nascent form, but the Japanese are such cartoonish villains, almost buffoonish at times, that it makes their machinations even less believable than they already appear.

The bulk of the film sets up Ip Man’s indoctrination into traditional Wing Chun (including with a cameo by Sammo Hung, as Man’s first mentor in the technique), along with Man’s “oath brother” (an adopted lad) named Tin-Chi (Fan Siu- wong). Man and Tin-Chi become resident students at a Wing Chun academy where they soon bond with a young girl there, Mei-Wai (Rose Chan Ka-Wun), who obviously has eyes for Man, though Tin-Chi just as obviously has eyes for her. That sets up the somewhat awkward central love triangle of the film which is further complicated when Man meets a prominent young woman named Cheung (Huang Yi), a woman who immediately senses that Man is the, well, man for her, bringing her into conflict with both her own family and Mei-Wai, who does everything in her power to keep Cheung and Man from getting closer.

The odd thing about The Legend is Born: Ip Man is that it takes virtually two thirds of its running time (which is not all that long to begin with) before any of these supposed conflicts spill out into the final third of the film, when a series of revelations creates a final act full of melodrama and frankly just silly at times character shifts. The best part of this Ip is the slow, steady accretion of knowledge and different techniques which Man picks up, especially after Man leaves Foshan and gets to Hong Kong, where he comes under the tutelage of an elder statesman of sorts (played by the real life Ip Man’s son, Ip Chun), who teaches Man a whole series of innovative moves that are not part of the rather narrow definition of “traditional” Wing Chun.

Yau does perhaps a bit more substantial work eliciting some nice performances from his cast, especially To as Ip Man. To obviously had enormous shoes to fill, as Donnie Yen has become so linked to the role, but the younger man does quite well evoking Yen’s performance style without aping it. While some of the other cast members are reduced to one note characterizations, Yau manages to find a little nuance in the proceedings, especially after Man is falsely accused of murder (just one of the many melodramatic episodes that play out as the film catapults toward its crazy-quilt conclusion). The fight sequences are very well staged and have some great prop and wire work. There’s nothing quite as balletic as, say, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or even in fact the first two Ip Man films, but the final bout, placing Ip Man against a coterie of ninja types, is exciting and brutal and helps to achieve some of the excitement that the overall film lacks.

The Legend Is Born: Ip Man Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Legend is Born: Ip Man is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is by and large a very appealing looking transfer if some deliberate filtering is taken into consideration. The first part of the film recounting Ip Man's youth, is intentionally desaturated, presented in a kind of quasi- sepia tinged with amber highlights. Despite the filtering, fine detail remains relatively strong, though some minimal shadow detail is lost. Once the film segues into a more natural looking palette, fine detail is very good to exceptional, and sharpness and clarity are increased substantially. The transfer has a couple of niggling artifacting issues, notably aliasing on such usual suspects as the parallel lines of metal fences and the like. Otherwise, though, this is a strong and solid presentation, with a suitably cinematic look, good contrast and black levels, and excellent clarity.

The Legend Is Born: Ip Man Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Two lossless audio options are offered on The Legend is Born: Ip Man, both Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround mixes. The English dub is a fairly useless track, with over the top voice work and dialogue that doesn't always match the subtitles very well. The original Cantonese track on the other hand is very well rendered here, though persnickety audiophiles might wish for more consistent surround activity outside of the action sequences. This particular Ip Man is less dependent on fight sequences for its dramatic purposes and that means that a lot of the film plays out in quieter dialogue scenes with the sound mix resolutely anchored in the front channels. Once we do get an action sequence, though, the surrounds come fully alive and the sound effects can be quite startling at times, especially when one of the nefarious Japanese decides to use a sword to increase their chances. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is similarly very, very good on this expressive track.

The Legend Is Born: Ip Man Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (SD; 13:21) has some interesting footage of location scouting, make-up tests and fight choreography interspersed with the requisite interviews and shots of scenes being filmed.
• Original Trailer (HD; 1:58)

The Legend Is Born: Ip Man Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ip Man has become such a legend that it's hard to separate fact from fiction, but I doubt even those much more acquainted with the real life story of Ip Man than I am are going to argue that this film is by far the most fictionalized of the three "biographical" outings that have been released thus far. The Legend is Born: Ip Man also veers fairly often into caricature, especially with regard to those evil Japanese, and the subplot involving Ip Man's adopted brother becomes ludicrous by the film's end. Those caveats aside, this is an interesting, if not overly involving, film that does offer excellent production design and a commanding lead performance from To. Yau is a director with good visual sense, if perhaps too much reliance on gimmicks like unending crane shots. The two Yen Ip Man features are still the go-to offerings for supposed Ip Man biographical films, but this "early" Ip Man outing is an acceptable entertainment that certainly merits an evening's rental if nothing more.