Ip Man 4: The Finale
Short description
Set in 1964, Ip Man 4: The Finale follows the Wing Chun master as he travels to San Francisco. His wife has died and his son has been expelled from school after a fight, so Ip Man hopes to find the boy a place to study abroad. At the same time, his former student Bruce Lee has invited him to the United States, where Lee's decision to teach Western students has angered the local Chinese martial arts community. Ip Man is caught between the established masters of Chinatown and his protégé, while also confronting racism from the American military, represented by a Marine officer named Barton Geddes who wants to prove which fighting discipline is superior.
Wilson Yip directs this fourth instalment of the series he began with Ip Man in 2008, working from a screenplay by Edmond Wong, Jill Leung Lai-Yin and Tai-lee Chan. Donnie Yen again plays Ip Man, with Wu Yue, Vanness Wu, Scott Adkins and Danny Chan Kwok-kwan among the credited cast of 58. The film was made for about 52 million US dollars and took roughly 239 million US dollars worldwide, a strong return on its budget.
Audience response has been solid: on IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 from around 41,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.3 out of 10 from more than 2,000 votes. A film critics' rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 34 reviews sits below those audience figures, though not far from them.
What's left behind the scenes
- When the character Chris Collins calls one of the students "Mr. Crisis," it's a reference to the name of the antagonist in the cartoon series "Karate Kid" (1989).
- In terms of roles, characters, and relationships with Ip Man, Master Wan, played by Yu Yue, is very similar to Master Hung, played by Sammo Hung in the action film "Ip Man 2" (Wilson Yip, 2010). Both play a supporting role to Ip Man, both are heads of local associations, the relationship between Ip Man and both of them initially didn't work out, but then improved. Ip Man fought both of them, and both fights ended in a draw, and finally, they both fought the main antagonist in their respective films and were both defeated (the only difference being that Master Hung died, while Master Wan did not).
- Chris Collins, who plays a Marine, has repeatedly told stories about the various operations he participated in, the scrapes he got into, and the injuries he sustained during his military service. However, some sources claim that all of this is fabrication, and that Collins served for only six months as a radio operator, without participating in any combat, which contradicts the image he created for himself in the press.
- To demonstrate his skills, the character played by Mark Strange strikes a door. Bruce Lee, played by Danny Chan, remarks that “doors don’t hit back, unlike me.” This episode is a reference to Robert Clouse's martial arts film 'Enter the Dragon' (1973), where Lee himself says the exact same phrase. Furthermore, Strange even visually resembles Robert Wall, to whom Lee addresses the line in 'Enter the Dragon'.
- The final scene, in which Bruce Lee supposedly appears at Ip Man's funeral to pay his respects, is fictional. Bruce Lee was not told about Ip Man's death.
Similar movies
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
