Ip Man
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All actors and roles (10)
Short description
Ip Man is a Hong Kong-Chinese martial arts drama based on the life of the Wing Chun master who taught Bruce Lee. In the 1930s, Ip Man is the most respected fighter in Foshan, a southern Chinese city known for its martial arts schools, yet he has no school of his own and takes no students, sparring only casually with friends. When the Japanese invasion brings occupation and hardship, Ip Man is forced to work in a coal mine to support his family and finds himself drawn into confrontations with Japanese soldiers, including General Miura, who wants to test Chinese fighters in matches offering rice as a reward. Ip Man refuses to train Japanese troops and instead stands up for the honor and dignity of his people under occupation.
Wilson Yip directed the film, the fifth in the run of features he had made up to that point, following The White Dragon, SPL: Kill Zone, Dragon Tiger Gate and Flash Point, and preceding the sequels Ip Man 2, Ip Man 3 and Ip Man 4: The Finale. Donnie Yen plays the lead, with Simon Yam, Lynn Hung, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Lam Ka-tung and Louis Fan Siu-Wong among the credited cast of 44. Sammo Hung handled the fight choreography. Made for about 12 million dollars, the film took around 22 million worldwide.
Both audience scores are strong, with an IMDb rating of 8 out of 10 from roughly 243,000 votes and 7.8 out of 10 on TMDB from over four thousand. The critics' rating of 6.7 out of 10 from 29 reviews sits noticeably below those audience figures.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shot in Shanghai, where the architecture of Foshan in the 1930s was recreated.
- It is said that during the rehearsal of one of the fight scenes, Donnie Yen received a glancing blow with an axe on set. In addition, a masseur was constantly on standby on set, as Yen had problems with his right shoulder due to an old injury.
- Donnie Yen is a master of various martial arts styles, including Wing Chun, which he studied under Ip Chun, the eldest son of Ip Man.
- On the 86th minute of the film, Ip Man gives Yuan an iron box and leaves while he opens it. The next shot shows Yuan opening the box again.
- Ip Chun, son of Ip Man, provided consultation on biography and fight choreography.
- During a fight scene, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi (who played the Japanese warlord) received four consecutive blows and suffered a mild concussion.
- The first film about Ip Man was made, although the idea of filming a biographical film about him had been around for three decades. It was originally intended that Donnie Yen would play the role of Ip Man in the first biopic, and work on the film was supposed to begin in 1997. Stephen Chow was to play the role of the adult Bruce Lee. Work on this film was halted after the first day of shooting.
- Modern architecture in Foshan differs from its architecture in the 1930s, so the decision was made to film in Shanghai, in one of the industrial areas. A cotton mill was recreated by the designers from an abandoned warehouse in a matter of weeks. It was at this cotton mill, founded in 1930 by a friend of Ip Man, that the famous master first began openly teaching the Wing Chun martial art.
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