Ip Man 2 is a slightly less enjoyable movie than the first one.

Ip Man 2 is centered around the life of Yip Man, who after leaving Foshan (from the continuation of the end of the first movie), moves to Hong Kong and starts a martial arts school while there. Soon, students start pouring in until one day one of Ip Man's students, Wong Leung, fights a student from a rival martial arts club that is headed by a master (Sammo Hung) who has ties to the local police force. One thing leads to another and we are left with the battle between Chinese martial arts vs. Western style boxing in a boxing match.

Overall, I thought the action was spectacular. The fight scenes were done well and the trailer did the movie an injustice as it made Ip Man seem weak due to him pummeling his enemies with a volley of punches. Even though I hate Sammo, he really did a great job choreographing all the action scenes throughout the movie.

I found that the story was lacking a bit. In the first one, the Japanese occupied Chinese territory and there was a real understanding of why Ip Man fought with the leader of the Japanese army. Here, there really isn't a focal point that makes you get why he had to fight in the first place. To me, there was no theme here. It just seemed like he fought for the sake of fighting and to get people to stop.

Nevertheless, the story can take a backseat as long as the action is good. It was. There was never a dull moment and while I found the story to be ridiculous and almost non-existent, it didn't detract from my viewing pleasure.

As for the actors, Donnie Yen plays Ip Man so well. He really carried the film as the classy, benevolent and powerful master. Sammo Hung wasn't anything special as the leader of another martial arts school. I thought Sammo's character, Hung Chun-nam, was really ridiculous. He went from the villain to hero in all of 30 minutes. Huang Xiaoming was good as the cocky and brash student of Ip Man. I liked the return of Lynn Hung's character (Ip's wife) and Fan Siu-Wong's character (former thief from the first film that challenges Ip Man to a duel and later befriends him). Simon Yam was completely wasted as Chow Ching-chuen. It would have been better if they left him off-screen and talked about him in passing or if he was actually helping Ip Man do something. He was completely useless to Ip Man and contributed nothing to the plot. Darren Shahlavi's performance as Twister was good but one-note. They made him seem almost inhuman with the manic way he was supposed to portray the character.

Still, all those nitpicks were not enough to lower my satisfaction of the movie. The action scenes really flowed well and Donnie Yen carried the film on his back and then some. It's sad that he will not take part in another Ip Man film. He plays the character so well and he makes others look good too.

8.5/10

Ip Man 2

I haven't seen the first Ip Man, but if it's anything like the sequel then I won't bother. Ip Man 2 is watchable once, but not again. The ever straight-faced Donnie Yen just doesn't have any charisma at all. I kind of can't stand these old clothes wearing Chinese movies. There's too many of them and nothing especially striking happens in any of them.

D