IP_Man II 葉問
A must-see film!
Hong Kong (2008)
Starring:
Donnie Yen (Ip Man = Yip Man)
Sammo Hung (Master of Hung Ga)
Simon Yam (Ip man his friend)
Fan Siu-Wong (former bandit)
Darren Shahlavi (Tvister)
Ip Man is adapted from the early life story of Yip Man -葉問 the Grandmaster of the Wing Tsun (Wing Chun) system of martial arts and Sifu of legendary Kung Fu superstar Bruce Lee.
In the title role, Donnie Yen again proves his aptitude for emotionally charged action. He delivers a powerhouse performance in a role he clearly held dear.
Continuing from where the first film left off Wing Tsun (Wing Chun) Grandmaster Yip Man and his family move to Hong Kong in the early 1950s after their escape from the Japanese. In Hong Kong he desires to open a school to propagate his art, as well as make his living, but he has difficulty attracting students due to his lack of reputation in the city.
For setting up a Kong Fu school Yip Man must be subjected to a ceremony where he must be challenged by the city's Kung Fu masters. Yip Man attends the ceremony and defeats his first and second challengers, and then strikes a draw with the last challenger, Hung. Yip Man is allowed to keep running his school on the condition that he pay the monthly protection fees, but he declines. Hung thus has his students loiter in front of the Wing Chun School and harass anyone interested, causing a street brawl between them and Yip's disciples. Yip is thus forced to close up and move the school nearer to home. He soon confronts Hung for his bullying and their respective views on integrity, then nearly engage in another brawl before being interrupted by Hung's family. Yip respectfully leaves, and the next day, Hung invites him to a British boxing match he had helped to set up.
The boxing competition begins with the various martial art schools demonstrating their skills. However, the event's star boxer, Taylor "The Twister" Milos, looks down on the display and openly insults the students, causing chaos as the masters try to restore order. Hung accepts Twister's challenge to a fight so that he can defend his culture's honor.
At the start, Hung has trouble hurting his opponent and begins to weaken from asthma. Hung is finally beaten to death by Twister.
Twister announces that he will accept any challenge from the Chinese out of goodwill. Yip arrives and accepts the challenge.
The last and main fight between Twister and Yip Man
Yip Man has trouble hurting the boxer as Hung did, and is knocked down several times. After the judges ban kicks in the middle of the bout, Yip takes several more hard blows and is knocked down again. Upon getting up, he quickly pinpoints Twister's weak points, and in a flurry of his own blows (mixed in with several of Hung's techniques), he brutally knocks out his opponent.
After the fight Yip Man gives a speech to the British audience, stating that despite the differences between their peoples, he wishes for everyone to respect one another.
A final scene shows Kong-Yiu introducing a young boy to Yip, who wishes to study Wing Chun: Bruce Lee. Yip only tells the boy to come back when he is older.
