Movie Review: Ip Man 2/葉問2:宗師傳奇

Ip Man 2: Double Donnie!!!I saw the promo poster for this at Filmart. Quite frankly, I wasn't looking forward to it based simply on the poster:Gee, I wonder who the bad guy is and who'll win the final battle.

I wanted to see this movie at the Dynasty, which in retrospect we should have.

It's not badly acted, or directed, and the fight scenes are interesting,  but the flaws of the film far outweighed the pluses for me.

The minor flaw of this film is the criminal under-use of Fan Siu Wong, whose fighting capability is all too rare these days.

The bigger flaw, however, is no surprise.

It's been a long time since 1972, when Bruce Lee defended the honor and dignity of Chinese Martial Arts against rude, dismissive gweilo (who were portrayed as often as not by his own students).

But what's 40 years?

Apparently, China still feels it is necessary to flog this dead horse through the most inane, ham-fisted and stupid movies.

All the white (read: bad) guy does in Ip Man 2/葉問2:宗師傳奇is yell insults at Chinese people.

He's like a bigoted Tourette's Syndrome sufferer with overactive growth hormones.

I do have to say that Brian Burrell is good as the bilingual fight announcer, but he is obviously respectful of China and therefore need not be portrayed negatively.

He knows his place...

A feminist friend once told me that women who truly believe themselves equal to men don't need to constantly tell everyone that they're equal to men.

I don't need to tell people I'm tall. I am.

So who is China trying to convince with these histrionic, jingoistic celluloid tirades?

China up, ho's down! has become an all-too-predictable ingredient in recent films made for 'Up Above.'

In and of itself, it's not bad. Fearless/霍元甲achieved this idea in a much more subtle, thoughtful and entertaining manor.

Of course,Fearless wasn't made for China.

TrueLegend/蘇乞兒's first three quarters were entertaining and engaging, and gave us a solidly entertaining film.

Sadly, this commendable film was cornholed by a grossly inappropriate, tacked-on 'alternative China ending' that was as unnecessary as it was totally f@#$ing stupid in which China is defended from oppressive (shouting white overgrown) foreigners.

By a f@#$ing alcoholic.

Not that it makes you a bad person, I'm just saying...But he was a Chinesealcoholic, so apparently it was okay. What's especially moronic is that most of the non-Chinese (read: inferior) people interested in martial arts films are gweilo.

Who no doubt laugh at these atavistic caricatures such that the message is wasted on them.

Donnie Yen is obviously popular in China, and his films have developed an unfortunate tendency to pound the (Communist) party fist.14 Blades/錦衣衛''s bad guys were Muslims in western China intent on subverting a righteous government.

Any resemblance to Uighurs living or dead is intentional. Last year'sIp Man/葉問' ends with a title card revisionist enough to assert that  after China defeated Japan in WWII (apparently it isn't just the Japanese whose textbooks diddle history like it was a cheerleader), Ip Man came to Hong Kong to escape the KMT.

I'll be nice and say that's just a spelling error, since the historical truth is that it was the CCP.

The China DVD release of Ip Man/ 葉問 included an exhortation on the cover to never forget what Japan did to China.

You mean lose the war?

Kill less than halfthe people Mao did?

Be the single largest donor nation to China for decades?

Make China Japan's largest foreign aid recipient for decades?Invest heavily in China?

Pay reparations even after China renouncedthem in 1972? (see Article 5.) It should be news to a lot of people in China since the CCP never toldpeople in China (p.134).

I say all that because Maximum Donnie's next film is精武風雲.陳真, whose trailer makes it look like some sort of Chinese Spider Man, with Donnie as Toby McGuire and the Japanese Army as the Joker.Guess who's going to win?Not anyone that goes to see it.