My love of the martial arts has persisted since childhood and drove me to spend over 15 years training in several styles myself and fueled my passion for the portrayal of different styles on film. So I can verify the effectiveness of the style that Donnie Yen portrays on camera (which of course some old fashioned camera work and exaggeration for good measure). In fact Augustine Fong, one of the successors of Ip Man’s original instruction has made his home here for several decades, and I’ve had the privilege of witnessing his skill more times that I care to admit. I happen to live in Tucson, Arizona, which just so happens to be a sort of mecca for great martial arts instructors, ranging from Kenpo, to Karate, to Wing Chun. A duel that Ip Man is not so eager to pursue when he finds out his beloved wife has been diagnosed with cancer. After his own child is caught up in Frank’s kidnapping venture, Tin-chi has a bit of a change of heart, but not before challenging Ip Man to duel over the fate of the Wing Chun style. Dirt poor and desperate to start his own school, Cheung Tin-chi (Max Zhang) works his tail off fighting in one of Frank’s underground fight clubs. Simultaneously we have a sub plot involving another Wing Chun master who wants to see his name as the official Grandmaster of the style. That is until Frank decides to make it very VERY personal by kidnapping a group of children (including Ip Man’s son) and threatens the very ones that he holds dear. Refusing to let the school be bullied by thugs, Ip Man offers his services to the school as a guard and effectively beats off the goons. He is once again put to the test when a foreign gangster by the name of Frank (Mike Tyson) starts putting the squeeze on his son’s elementary school in a land grab of great importance. Not as wealthy as he once was, but still able to care for his family, Ip Man has created a seat for himself at the head of the incredibly vast martial arts “table” and has become one of the most respected masters in the city. Living in Hong Kong with his wife, Cheung Wing-sing (Lynn Hung) and his young son, Ip Man has slowly recovered from the depths of poverty that drove him from his home so many years ago. The bulk of the story once again pits Ip Man against a host of criminals and scum bags who are on some nefarious mission to turn the city where he is staying into a victim filled morgue where only the incredible martial arts prowess of the grandmaster can save them all. This is hinted about ever so slightly in “Ip Man 3”, as we see two scenes with someone who is OBVIOUSLY Bruce Lee (played by Danny Chan) that come and go so quickly as to be almost missable. That is, actually training Bruce Lee in the art of Wing Chun.
As much as the historian in me hates the concept of fictionalizing his life, the martial arts action junkie in me says “wheeeee, do it again”! Ironically the thing that made his famous in the public eye is the thing that’s actually never really focused on in the movies. Able to stop punches with his mind (almost) and take on 300 bad guys without taking a punch. Ip Man (Donnie Yen) has almost become immortalized and turned into a mixture of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris jokes.
Much of the “Ip Man” series is heavily fictionalized in comparison to his real life, and while there are scraps of reality hidden in the films, there is much more fabrication going on. As is with most “thirds” in a series of movies, “Ip Man 3” is a bit weaker than those that came before it, but is still head and shoulders better than the other movies made about the grandmaster of Wing Chun. However, with the incredible success of Yen and Wilson Yip at the helm, a sequel to the original two films was pretty much inevitable. Even “The Grandmaster” was about his life, but taken in a very different direction than the cheap and cheesy “Final Fight” and “Legend”.
With Donnie Yen not really willing to do a third movie in a short space of time, other studios and other directors had a chance to make films about him, including the VERY poor “The Legend is Born: Ip Man” starring Dennis To (a prequel really), and then “Ip Man: The Final Fight”. After 2008’s “Ip Man” with Donnie Yen and the sequel that occurred a short time later, it was pretty much a guarantee that the martial artist would have more films made about him. Even though it’s titles “Ip Man 3”, it’s really more like the sixth movie about the venerable instructor to Bruce Lee.