Review: Young Ip Man

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2023
Images from the Internet

Young Ip Man (aka Young Ip Man: Crisis Time; 少年叶问之危机时刻; Shàonián yè wèn zhī wéijī)
Directed by Liming Li
iQIYI; Flying Youth Pictures; Lajin; Hi-YAH!; Well Go USA Entertainment
79 minutes, 2020 / 2023
https://wellgousa.com/films/young-ip-man
www.hiyahtv.com
#youngipman @WellGoUSA

While I could be wrong about this, it seems as much like the last 50 or so Amityville and [fill-in-the-blank]nado films do not really have anything to do with the original productions other than name usage, I wonder if that is true with the term “Ip Man.” Paraphrasing from Wikipedia, “Ip Man, born as (Y)Ip Kai-man (1893-1972) was a Hong Kong-based Cantonese martial artist and a grandmaster of the martial art of Wing Chun when he was 20. He had several students who later became martial arts masters in their own right, the most famous among them being Bruce Lee.”

“Ip Man” started as a series of films starring martial art legend Donnie Yen that was rightfully quite successful. Yen became iconic in the role. For this Chinese release in Mandarin (with English subtitles), Zhao Wenhao picks up the titular position as Ip Man.

Zhao Wenhao

The film opens with a bang, detailing the escape of villain Ma Long, who was set for execution for previous but not described felonies. One scene is reminiscent of Enter the Dragon (1973). Lots of shooting, stabbing, explosions, car chases, and so on. Nice way to begin, before we are even introduced to Ip Man, who is studying martial arts in said Hong Kong. We also meet his friend, Xuehu, who is wanting to impress his girlfriend, Xiaofeng.

Ip Man is also studying in a college. As this is set in 1917 in Hong Kong, which was under British rule, the school is hosting the First Xinsi Cup English Speech Contest. It is here we meet Yayun, a cute, yet spoiled rich girl who has a thing for our titular hero.

Before the contest can begin, all the students are kidnapped within the enormous building (shades of 1988’s Die Hard) by Ma Long and his gang, which includes assassin Ma Wei (Pantheras Freedman), and Xuehu, who is in need of money to buy a present for his sweetie. The purpose of the action by our villains is to hold the son of the British Police Commissioner for ransom, and possibly other nefarious reasons.

As you may have guessed, there is a socio-political component to this film, with high reliance on a dislike of the British rule in Hong Kong (much as the UK was the enemy in films about the American Revolutionary War). I have seen a number of Chinese martial arts releases which took place in the 1930s where Japan was the enemy after their invasion, but it is interesting to see it pointed at British colonialism.

Another interesting aspect is that in many of these films, the henchmen are anonymous and throw-away “machines” in the cog of the event (1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had fun of this with Will Farrell’s character), and while most here fit that ilk, having Ip Man’s masked buddy Xuehu one of the crew makes it a bit more human.

Something I do not understand, and again, this is common for many films, is that doors are locked, but nobody thinks about breaking a window to escape. I was wondering if this was a cultural thing about destroying the property of the authorities, but they seem to have no qualms about wrecking furniture, and, in fact, break windows during fights.

Despite the drastic situation (which in the States, attacks on schools seems commonplace lately), and some decent martial arts fighting), the film actually starts a bit on the light side, often using humor, or being careful not to be too Die Hard deadly. For example, machine guns open fire on a crowd, and an explosive goes off, and yet, no one is killed. This could have been a fine John Wick intense moment, but that is not the direction of the film, which is action-based, rather than slaughter. The viewer sees lots of fights, but few killings onscreen, making those that are there more compelling. I say this not as neither a positive nor negative thing, but as an observation.

There is also a bit borrowed in theme from Kill Bill; Vol. 1 (2003), especially the House of Blue Leaves sequence, including Leng Yu, a female assassin using a chain with a deadly point, a la Gogo Yubari.

This is the director’s third feature film, and second “Ip Man” release (the first being 2019’s Ip Man: Kung Fu Master). One of the things that made Donnie Yen so iconic as Ip Man, other than his long black jacket, was his stoicism. That is one thing that is lost here, but perhaps it is because he is so young yet and has to learn the hard lessons that would bring him to that point.

There are quite a few fights, increasing in number as the film progresses, with some wire work, but not over the top (e.g., no one jumps from one storey to another). It is nice to see where Ip Man first developed his “trope” of numerous punches within seconds to the chest. I also like that sometimes things happen for reasons that are not expected, such as previous relationships.

Overall, as martial arts films go, the storyline is a bit thin and mostly follows a formula. Yet, this was a fun watch throughout; tropes are there because they are popular, after all.

As a note, as stated on IMDB: “This is supposed to take place in 1917, but the cars, clothes and many items are from at least two decades later.”

IMDB listing HERE

Review: Bruce’s Deadly Fingers

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018

Images from the Internet

Bruce’s Deadly Fingers (aka Lung men bei chi; The Young Dragon)

Written and directed by Joseph Kong

VCI Entertainment / United Cine-Production Enterprises / MVD Visual

91 minutes, 1976 / 2018

www.vcihomevideo.com

www.mvdvisual.com

Do you remember where you were when you heard Bruce Lee died in 1974, when he was just age 32? He would be 78 now. I don’t, but there are countless who do. His passing, probably due to his brain swelling in reaction to mixed medications, has led to two cultural side effects: the weird one was all the conspiracy theories about how he died, such as a popular one that he was killed by a kung fu punch to his heart (as characterized in Kill Bill: Vol. 2) that did him in days later; the other was the rise of what is known as Brucesploitation [BS].

People, as they are wont to do, tried to cash in on the Bruce Lee [BL] craze and death by pouring out quick and cheap martial arts films with actors who changed their names to the likes of Dragon Lee, Bruce Li and Bruce Le (from Taiwan, who started as Chien-Lung Huang). Nearly all of them imbued some of Lee’s outward tokens, such as clothing and mannerisms, but it also helped that they bore some resemblance to the late star.

Bruce Le doing his best Bruce Lee

For this film, Bruce Le picked up the mantle playing Bruce Wong, who has returned to Hong Kong from San Francisco after learning of the death of a parent and not being able to find his sister, Shiu Ju. Arriving, he finds that her boyfriend has tried to sell her into prostitution to pay off a gambling debt. Le rescues her, and then it’s either the mob vs. Le, or Le vs. the mob. That’s where most of the mayhem starts.

Another major plot point is the search by everyone for “Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu Finger Book,” which supposedly shows how to kill with your fingers (a direct relation to the rumor about how the star died). If you took a drink every time some uses the phrase “Kung Fu Finger Book,” you’d die of alcohol poisoning, arguably before the film is half over.

Nora Miao

There are also some other subplots, such as Mina (the cute Nora Miao, who actually did star with BL onscreen), the fictional actress girlfriend of the actual Bruce Lee (I’m curious to know what BL’s widow thought of that storyline premise) and his sis are kidnapped by the gang; Le is out to get them back with the help of two friends.

Unlike a BL film where all the action centers around BL, here Le is only in about half of the battles, others being his friends, and someone from Interpol (Michael Chan, the best actor/strongest fighter here) who wants to bring the gang to justice.

As for Le, he is shorter than most of his opponents, and exhibits all the Lee clichés, as they would be known now: the yellow track suit with the stripe (again, also employed in Kill Bill: Vol. 1), oversized shaded glasses (like Elvis), wiping the side of his nose (more than once), and the open mouth/wide eyed scream (“Eeeeeyaaaahhhh”).

Beyond the BL-isms, there is also a lot of kung fu flick tricks that are also employed, including the quick zoom to a close-up of the eyes (was this tic taken from the Spaghetti Westerns, or the other way around?), and the sound of wood blocks crashing every time a fist is thrown, whether it lands or not.

The story is a bit convoluted, and honestly a bit hard to follow at times, but I believe that is in part because of the translation issues. I’ve always found it humorous how the overdubs try to match the lips so there are awkward pauses in weird spots, such as (I’m making this up: “I have come here to see…how you are doing.”) Also, the talking seems to either be monotone or yelling. As for the language conversion, the story may make sense in Cantonese, but something is definitely lost in the translation. The confusion  includes the following plot points: why is that guy fighting those thugs in in the pool hall, exactly? How come that same is now fighting with Wong’s friend since he seems to be on their side?

The thing is that hardly anybody in the center of the United States, at that time, really cared about motivation, but rather they wanted to see some fighting. And there is a lot of it here. It’s amazing how rarely you see guns, even though it takes place in then-modern times. Other than a sniper, it’s nearly all fists, knives, swords, nunchucks, and poles. In the West, this probably confused a lot of people who grew up on Westerns, and having assault rifles (sorry, I mean ArmaLite rifles) are normalized.

Michael Chen vs. Bolo Yeung

There are four or five main fighters here: Le who is okay, his two friends (one who is good, one who keeps getting the snot wacked outta him), Chen (who steals most of his scenes), Lee Hung (Lieh Lo [d. 2002]), the head of the mob who is looking for the Kung Fu Finger Book), and Le’s teacher and Uncle, Master Wong. Bolo Yeung (aka Yang Sze), who is also known as Chinese Hercules for his sheer size and strength since he was the Chinese bodybuilding champion for a decade and a star in his own right, also makes an appearance as a villain in one scene. And you just know, as it’s bound to happen in these films, Le goes through a training session with his Kung Fu Master to build up to the big fight with Hung, with which these genre films nearly always end. This one is short, but particularly gruesome.

I found it interesting that it almost seems like the fights are choreographed by two different people with different styles. Some of the action is kinda shoddy and lackluster, with people missing each other by inches. Others, especially towards the end, look really well staged. While Chan definitely is the best actor and consistent fighter, Le is the worst actor and sometimes great chopping action and other times meh, Personally, I feel the reason for the bad acting is two-fold. First, it’s the genre: this equivalent of B-films tend to be ramped up to emoting level 11, or hang around 2 at a monotone. Second, Le seems to be trying hard to appear like BL on screen. In other words, acting like someone who is acting. Everything is too emphasized without any nuances. That’s not to say it’s not fun, because it is, but it’s important to remember that it is what it is.     

"When is #MeToo again?"

The area where this this is dated the most, though, is the way women are represented. There are lots of kung fu films where women are warriors in the past, but I find that ones that take place in the present are less likely to do so. Here, women are seen tied up almost as much not, forced into prostitution, tortured with lizards (it’s an infamous scene in this particular release), and almost always seen as submissive. Even when one proves to be proficient in the martial arts, she is easily defeated and talked down to as being inferior and not really a threat. Even the two strongest characters, the gang leader’s mistress and the actress Mina are either put in danger often, or seen as not important.

Like a lot of post-BL releases that fall into the BS column, many of the actors here overlap from BL films, such as Yeung, Lieh, Chan, and Miao, among others here.

Being a Blu-ray and DVD combo package, there are extras up the wazoo. The most basic one is a collection of Brucesploitation trailers. The first few are among the last batch of BL’s films, followed by the “Elvis Impersonators” (as I like to call them), including Li, Le and Dragon. What I found interesting about this collection was being able to compare the original BL with his imitators; in style and personality, it’s easy to see why Lee is valued above others. There is also a HD version of this film’s original trailer.

The commentary track is with a BS and BL expert, as well as actor, director and author, and especial fan, Michael Worth. It’s a great talk about the film, both the direct and indirect connections with BL, and some history of the genre. Definitely worth a listen.

Le being wide-eyed and bushy fingered

There is a 6-minute Deleted Scenes with mostly superfluous material that doesn’t really add or take away from the story, but are enjoyable to view (some dubbed into English, others with subtitles, and one silent). Also, humorously, is a 6-minute “Bad Kung Fu Dubs,” which is clips from this film and the bad overdubs (and acting) that I mentioned earlier. Last up is an image gallery of stills for mostly this, and some for other BS films.

I remember having a conversation with Mariah Aguire (RIP), who was a photographer and scenester during the early New York punk days, and who was a huge kung fu film fan. Over lunch at Dojos on St. Mark’s Place, I mentioned that my personal taste was period pieces about pre-18th Century Asian history (the Japanese equivalent would be the samurai films) more than modern gangster tales, and she chided me, saying there was fun and a sense of cheesiness in both. Of course, she was right, and even though I still have my preferences, I see what she was saying back then. This is a good example of that.

Despite wallowing in all the kung fu clichés, including some really bad overacting by some of the players, this is exactly what it was supposed to be: a story that is secondary to the action, and in that way, it’s extremely successful.