Ip Man: Kung Fu Master

[Drunk Monk]

I know, I know, I streamed this so it should be in the streaming subforum. But it doesn't release here until the first week of December and I watched it as a screener from Magnolia for a review for Den so I'm posting it here as if it was a real screener. 

Man, I miss screeners in movie theaters. Miss them so bad.

So this review writes itself because there's so much going on in terms of its inclusion in the Ip Man franchise. It's actually a stand alone. Dennis To plays Ip, a role he took in Herman Yau's first film, because he bears a slight resemblance to Donnie Yen (all Asians look alike so did that really matter? IDK). Dennis was in 2 of the Donnie Ip films in a small role, plus a parody where he played Ip again. But if anything, this film steals stuff from The Grandmaster - the rain fights, the white fedora & cheongsam. But heck, I'll save that for the review which y'all can read later.

As a martial arts film, this has a lot of fight scenes - a lot of really absurd ones too. The first one is like a hundred axe men vs. Ip. They're okay. Nothing ground breaking. In fact, the fights are rather passe for my tastes, but there's plenty to satisfy the less martially endowed. It's got sappy melodramatic bits, and some odd historical references, and a drunken master (that's been done too). I'm not fond of Dennis as Ip. He's a former Wushu champ so he has the moves, but he doesn't have any acting skills. 

Nevertheless, I think I can pull a pretty chunky review out of this - a deep dive of the sort that Den likes. 

There are some swords, but no real sword fight. Lots of axes tho. Not particularly DOOM recommended.