Ip Man 2 Review

Since I reviewed the first Ip Man movie, I figured I would watch the second. I didn't really plan on writing anything about it but good lord...it's so bad I don't think I can sleep without complaining about it a little. There will probably be spoilers, but trust me, you couldn't spoil this crappy movie with a crying baby and a roomful of rock-eating robots.

The plot doesn't really matter so I won't go into the details. It's Yip Man in Hong Kong. Basically there are three plot points: Yip Man has to fight in order to open a school, Yip Man fights a boxer for the honor of Chinese people, and Yip Man gives a dude a chicken (ok, it's a duck but chicken is funnier than duck) and loves to watch him eat it.

The first thing I want to complain about is something I mentioned when talking about the last movie. I was a little uncomfortable with using a real person that isn't really a historical character and just making up whatever you like about their life and marketing your movie with their name. I let it go in the last movie because it was basically a fun movie but this second one is just a cynical cash grab. So what is next? Made up crap about the relationship between Yip Man and Bruce Lee? Yip Man goes to Hawaii? The whole thing is embarrassing.

 The fight scenes are pretty weak. Basically the fight scenes involve a bunch of blocking while punching, rapid chain punches, stupid wire tricks (check out super flipping Sammo Hung), and that silly thing where people are able to keep from falling off something by trying really hard not too or grabbing the ground with their toes or something. Also, Yip Man fights like 50 dudes with knives by spinning a wooden pallet around in second-rate Jackie Chan style.

Everything in this movie is a rehash of the last movie or another movie. There is nothing original in the least. The worst part is the second half that is exactly the Rocky IV movie except with kungfu and boxing instead of just boxing. Sammo Hung is Apollo creed who gets killed by the English man who is the Russian. Yip Man is Rocky obviously who gives a stupid speech and wins over the racist white people with his fists and words. Here are just a few stupid points and then I am done cause I shouldn't be wasting my time talking about this movie.

• The main bad English guy is just called Twister. They don't even bother to give him a proper name. I thought he was going to have some kind of twisty boxing style, but when I heard the Chinese, they referred to him as tornado so I was like, "oh, that kind of twister....did they even use that word in 1950?...What a stupid name for a boxer, especially a boxer from England. Maybe they should have called him the Drizzle if they wanted to have a more appropriate weather theme." 
• There is a boxing match at the end and there are fricken ring girls. Somebody check the history on that one.
• I love how the boxer wears boxing gloves because, hey, he's a boxer, but Yip Man doesn't. Yip Man also kicks and elbows and grabs and does whatever he wants to do. Who set up the rules of this competition? 
• At the end of the match I swear they play a second rate copy of the original Rocky theme. 
• The white people in this movie are all reprehensible characters, the actors playing them can't act and for some reason, they don't seem to be able to speak English correctly and can only yell and growl. 
• Old people can fly.
• Here is what Twister says to set up the boxing challenge, "In order to protect my name [you know...Twister] and reputation, I have agreed to fight any Chinese person. Now from what I hear, the Chinese like to use these [he laughs and pulls out a giant joss stick] and I would like to stick to that tradition so I have agreed to fight any challenger for as long as this thing burns. And this is a pretty big joss stick so its going to give plenty of opportunity for any challenger to come forward. But be warned I will not hold back. By the time this thing has burned to the end, there will be no more Chinese boxers, because I will have killed them all. In fact, I don't think we are even going to need to use this thing because I doubt that there is any Chinese fella that has the guts to get in the ring with me." What the hell does any of that even mean? Basically Yip Man comes forward and challenges him and that is the whole end of the joss stick thing. Oh yeah, keep in mind that Twister is saying all this after he kills Hung (whatever his character name is) in the ring. 
• Here is the speech that Yip Man gives that makes all the white people stand up and cheer. "Hello, I didn't come here to prove which is better, Chinese or Western boxing. Although people have different status in life, I don't believe that one person's integrity is worth more than another's. I hope that we can start to respect each other. That's all, thank you."  What the hell is that? He should of just yelled for his wife like Rocky did. 

Ok, that's it, I am done. I just wanted to get this review out there since there aren't many reviews that would warn people away from this great big waste of time. Hopefully someone will google the movie and find this review and save their time and money.