Review of Master Z: Ip Man Legacy: absurd, skinny, but many fights

After three films illustrating a popular version of the hero, Ip Man, which inspires the revolt against the Japanese and British colonials occupying Hong Kong, and even Mike Tyson, the Grandmaster's Martial Arts franchise takes its first Master Z: Ip Man Heritage. Although also written by Edmond Wong, the lead director, Wilson Yip, has been replaced by Yuen Woo Ping, choreographer and legendary combat director known for his graceful martial arts choreography in his own films (Drunken Master, Iron Monkey) and in his work better known in the West (Hidden dragon tiger squatting, the matrix).

This new film continues a character arc of Ip Man 3, with Cheung Tin-Chi (Max Zhang), a great rival Wing Chun became a mercenary in the wake of a humiliating defeat against Ip. There is a tension between the obvious talent of Cheung's martial arts, his desire to lead a simple and straightforward life, and his struggle to face his defeat and loss of reputation. Instead of trying to bounce back, he completely renounces Wing Chun and attacks a crime syndicate.

This is a movie of Yuen Woo-ping, there is a little more work cable than in the previous ones Ip Man films, badociated with a more vertical staging; A particularly acrobatic fight scene takes place in a neon strip of three floors above the ground. The camera often stands at a distance to display the full extent of the movie star's agile athleticism, but the impact is not less. It is devastating, scathing and elegant at the same time, and not without brief philosophical reflections on the purpose of all this. A Cheung peer even hints at a nice counterpoint to the Ip Man "Martial arts is not about winning" of the series. It is in these moments where Master Z feels the most comfortable.

Zhang is agile and exciting to watch and brings a lot of personality to a character who is driven from one scene to another, either for reasons beyond his control, or with a sense of duty that he can not seem to shake. . While his motives and feelings are clear, his fight is consumed by the rest of the plot and by all the disproportionate characters that accompany it, that it's about Michelle Yeoh in as long as Kwan, the calm and authoritarian head of a local triad or Cheung's irritable leader, Xing Yu. The film presents Cheung as a person who has room to grow, who is not simply unbeatable; unlike the seemingly immortal Ip Man of Donnie Yen, he takes blows, makes mistakes and is easier to understand.

Apart from Yeoh and Zhang, there are many charming surprises in Master ZCast iron (slightly too padded). The biggest novelty for the Western audience is Dave Bautista, dressed in a reversal of his sweet giant-screen character, as an imposing and violent brute hiding behind his charitable actions. Tony Jaa also shows up for a few fights as a mysterious bad-headed man. Both are somewhat underutilized, appearing only in a few scenes each, which is a shame, as their presence looks like an upheaval in a way that Mike Tyson looks (bizarre) Ip Man 3 could only have dreamed. Bautista, in particular, is a delicious, terrifying and insurmountable enemy, with only about eight lines, half of which are steaks.

There are many plots between martial arts and acrobatics in which stories of redemption are superimposed on threads of fraternal rivalry, drug addiction, British colonialism and corruption. At one point, there may be four different parties involved in the same fight for different reasons, often obscured. If the melodramas are not always the rendezvous, it implies enough, because the script Wong puts the pieces in place for the next action.

Well to go to the United States

Despite the story's story and the size of the cast, many spaces used in Master Z feel strange, like an empty landscape to break, and that is often the case – especially in the case of the whole Bar Street, the downtown area flooded with neon lights, where is taking place there. essential storytelling. It's like being in a thematic park, or as if the strange and abstract design of Tokyo Drifter was involuntary. This effect is exacerbated by the bizarre lack of extras that gives most scenes played on the outside the same tune as a play. Forgetting is a distraction and betrayal of the rest of the film's technical flash.

Master Z is at its best in battle scenes and when he gives up the seriousness of his parent franchise. Yuen Woo-ping could be accused of having lost some control in recent years (consider Hidden Dragon of Crouching Tiger: The Sword of Fate), and Master Z This does not contradict this totally, with a multitude of exciting action scenes linked together by a light plot, predictable and difficult to handle and a conception of production that seems unfinished.

Although packaged in a slightly tougher package than Ip Man (to the point where there is an original ballad in the third act), it is still a good moment; It is a film in which Michelle Yeoh cuts the arm of a man with a sword during a negotiation and where, in the middle of a fight, a man comments: "I love somersaults. What is it for you? "

If nothing else, Master Z perpetuates the spirit of the Ip Man franchise as ridiculous, exciting and choreographed comfort food by experts.

Master Z: The legacy of Ip Man is now in theaters.

Kambole Campbell is a writer whose work is featured in Little White Lies, Death Movies Death, SciFi Now and Wave Faces.