Master Z: Ip Man Legacy

2019 • 107 minute

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Legendary action director Yuen Woo Ping draws on a stellar cast (Michelle Yeoh, Dave Bautista, Tony Jaa, and Max Zhang) to create a hard-hitting martial arts blast worthy of its place in the celebrated IP MAN universe. Following his defeat by Master Ip, Cheung Tin Chi (Zhang), tries to make a life with his young son in Hong Kong, waiting tables at a bar that caters to expats. But it's not long before the mix of foreigners, money, and triad leaders draw him once again to the fight.

Graderings en resensies

This flim was not bad, here's what I found about this movie. If you watch Ip man 3, this flim is a prequel to ip man 3, because after tin chi lost the wing chun from ip man, he continues doing his ricksaw job, I think. Then his house was burnt by chinese gang for one strange reason. That's all the details I will be telling. Overall not a bad spinoff flim.

Excellent spin-off of an excellent series, Master Z is different enough from Yen's Ip Man that this movie doesn't suffer from a same-character-different-name fatigue. The fight scenes also have a style entirely of their own, more street fight style merged with Wing Chun. It is a good movie for what it sets out to achieve, although the sets look too stagey and repetitive, and more at home in a 1950's Hollywood musical than a kung fu movie, and the patriotic evil westerner trope is getting dated.

I was really looking forward to this movie as I was a fan of the Ip Man trilogy. However, I had my reservations because spin-offs are generally hit or miss and more often the latter. With that said, with 89%/78% rating on RT I had a slightly high hope which were dashed in the end. The plot had potential but it was too rushed and most of the characters are not fleshed out nearly enough. Master Z also suffered the same problem as most of the Ip Man movies with having two dimensional and racist antagonists. There were also many common tropes in Hong Kong movies and honestly I couldn't tell if Master Z was poking fun at itself or simply playing into those same tropes. The martial arts in this movie was definitely top notch though but it wasn't enough to save the movie. In the end, I wouldn't recommend this movie but maybe see if you can find clips of the martial arts scenes.