User Reviews

Max Zhang returns for the lead actor role in MASTER Z: IP MAN LEGACY, a spin-off from Donnie Yen's popular IP MAN saga. Zhang played an arrogant rival in the third in that series, but here he's in retirement having opened up a grocery store with his kid. As with all martial arts films, he doesn't stay retired for long, and soon a plot involving a local gangster organisation and a drug-dealing top chef comes into play.

With direction by the acclaimed Yuen Woo Ping, MASTER Z is a brisk and efficient movie with strong production values and an excellent cast. Zhang gets to show more of his human side here, while there are fun cameos from Yuen Wah and Tony Jaa. Dave Bautista plays a role similar to the one essayed by Mike Tyson in IP MAN 3 but he's even better and more imposing. Michelle Yeoh takes what could have been a stock villain role and puts real character and strength into it.

As per usual, the emphasis of the movie is on the fight scenes and they're quite excellent here. Woo Ping can't resist turning to wirework but it's not too in your face, although the scene in which the characters jump between street signs doesn't obey the laws of gravity all that much; the climax of the Thai fight flick CHOCOLATE was much better. The multiple opponent brawls are hugely entertaining, but the real highlight is the lengthy one-on-one with Bautista at the climax, which really satisfies.

The movie held my attention and I appreciate that it worked in a good amount of story but the fighting was average and I felt like they totally botched one of the biggest moments of the film which was when Nana was killed. Her death barely seemed to have any emotional impact on any of the characters and that really bothered me. Still though...if they release a sequel I'll probably watch it.

You can't be a fan of martial arts movies or Quentin Tarantino without knowing the name Yuen Woo-Ping. Woo-Ping was the choreographer behind many of the classic martial arts movies to come out of China as well as doing the same role on films like THE MATRIX and CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON. But he's also a well-respected director in the genre as well having directed films like IRON MONKEY and DRUNKEN MASTER. So it should come as no surprise that Woo-Ping now helms the continuing saga started with the Ip Man series of films.

Picking up where the third IP MAN movie left off Cheung Tin Chi (Jin Zhang) has abandoned martial arts after his defeat at the hands of Ip Man. Now running a small store in Hong Kong while raising his young son he sets out to live simply. But fate has more in store for him.

While making a delivery he literally runs into Nana (Chrissie Chau), an opium addict in debt to gangster Tso Sai Kit (Kevin Cheng) and her friend Julia (Liu Yan). When Kit breaks the gift Chi bought for his son, he steps in to protect the two women before the police arrive. All are arrested and thanks to a payoff to the corrupt police chief they are released that night. But the release comes late and Chi misses the dinner he promised to take his son to at a high end restaurant owned by Davidson (Dave Bautista).

Seeking revenge for his humiliation Kit and his men firebomb Chi's store burning him and his son. As he escapes with his injured child the men follow him. Passing nearby the Gold Bar, owned by Fu (Xing Yu) Julia's brother, he bumps into Julia and asks her to watch after her son. One by one he defeats that gang chasing him as well as an assassin named Sadi (Tony Jaa) who's been following him.

Julia talks to her brother and he offers Chi a job working in the bar. The two talk and form a bond once he realizes who Chi is having studied martial arts himself. Their friendship is tested after Chi takes vengeance against Kit by destroying one of his opium dens. Kit's sister Kwan (Michelle Yeoh) is the actual head of the gang that Kit is part of. She was also the person responsible for helping Fu begin his bar and he's indebted to her. All is smoothed over when she talks to Chi.

Kwan is in the middle of trying to take their business legit but Kit wants to carry on with the gangster life. So much so that he makes a deal with a friend and gets into the heroin business. When his friend takes him to the man behind the heroin trade (no spoiler here folks) he cements his loyalty to the man and finds himself with more power than he had in the past.

Chi discovers what is taking place and alerts Kwan to the situation. She asks for time to settle the situation but before that happens Kit kills Nana who was engaged to Fu. Chi and Fu storm Kwan's offices and an all-out battle takes place that is amazing to watch. Another offering is made, another situation settled but not completely. It isn't long before Chi will be forced to reignite the flame inside and use his skills to right the wrongs set in place by the various situations fate has steered him to.

Look, I'm a fan of martial arts films and have been for some time. I grew up on those Saturday afternoon showings of Kung Fu Theater that had the imported Chinese martial arts films that were more about acrobatics than martial arts. But the movies coming out of China today are stunning in not just the martial arts skills on display but the technical aspects of the films as well. And with Well Go leading the pack in bringing these films around the world on disc they deserve major kudos.

Yes, I know that much of what we see on display here is wire skills, actors being lifted high in the air by trusses and wires. But there is more to it than that. The moves used in these films take an enormous amount of skill to do properly and they do indeed follow through on those skills.

More than that the film is gorgeous on so many levels. The cinematography for a movie that some would write off as "just a martial arts movie" is amazing. The fluidity of the fight sequences is stunning. And rather than fall prey to the worst shooting of a fight scene possible as many western films do (the Bourne films come to mind) they don't zoom in for close ups during fights or rely on jerky camera movement to cover up the problems associated with a fight sequence. Instead they back up enough that you can see the entire fight taking place. And in the sequence in Kwan's office you have not one but two separate fight sequences taking place at the same time for some amazing shots.

I've not gotten around to watching the IP MAN series though I was able to pick them up used a while back. Now I find myself wanting to pull them out to watch and set this one next to them on the shelf. I have a feeling I will enjoy them as much as this film. It will be one that I know I'll definitely pull out from time to time to watch. Once again praise to Well Go for bringing these films to the world. And continued success to them with more coming.

Legendary Wing Chun master and Bruce Lee instructor Ip Man is the gift that keeps on giving to Hong Kong cinema, as the man's teachings and influence are the cornerstone of equally legendary choreographer Yuen Woo-ping's period martial arts actioner Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy. On the heels of Herman Yau's The Legend Is Born - Ip Man and Ip Man: The Final Fight, Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster and Wilson Yip's Donnie Yen-led Ip Man trilogy - all released within the last decade - Yuen spins off Master Z from Yip's final entry featuring Ip's last challenger. Working from a script by the team that penned the trilogy, produced by Yen and blessed with Zhang Jin reprising his role as loser Cheung Tin-chi, all the elements for a swift, creative wuxia entertainment are present and accounted for, among them exciting fights, luscious 1960s costume design and So. Much. Property. Damage. Master Z may not do the business of Yip's trilogy, but a decent festival run and more than respectable box office in the markets where Ip Man succeeded is a given, particularly with Yuen's name (The Matrix, Kill Bill) attached. The only downside could be Ip Man overkill: A fourth entry in Yip's series is on the horizon. When Master Z begins, defeated Wing Chun challenger Cheung Tin-chi has learned a valuable lesson for his hubris and settled into a life as The Equalizer of '60s Hong Kong. Finally tired of the mercenary gig, he opens a humble grocery store and focuses on raising his son Fung. While making his deliveries one morning, Tin-chi has a run-in with a battered opium fiend, Nana (Chrissie Chau), and her best friend, Julia (Liu Yan), as the women are fleeing from drug-dealing thug Kit (Kevin Cheng). He helps them out, but it lands him on the radar of both the corrupt British police and Kit's gang. Kit is touchy about the lack of respect he incurs, chiefly from his sister Kwan (Michelle Yeoh, kicking ass in '60s bouffant), who runs the Cheung Lok triad their father founded and who wants to go legitimate. Infuriated by his public beat down at the hands of Tin-chi, Kit burns his shop and house to the ground. Tin-chi encounters Julia a second time after the fire, who in turn offers the two a place to stay with her brother Fu (Naason), owner of the Gold Bar on the innovatively named Bar Street. Yuen and action choreographer Yuen Shun-yi get things started at about the three-minute mark, when Tin-chi tells his mercenary handler he's done, and never really lets the film slow down. But amid combat and wire work, writers Edmond Wong and Chan Tai-lee efficiently set up the rest of the story, most of which anyone with even a passing familiarity with the genre will recognize instantly: Kit's a hothead who believes Cheung Lok needs to be expanding its illegal dealings, not abandoning them; Nana is a junkie and therefore as good as dead; the colonial police are the heavy hand of the ruling elite (whether that's a reference to the 1960s or now is up for debate); Fu is an honorable man who just wants to keep his head down and stay on the good side of big spending gwailos; Julia isn't married; and single dad Tin-chi has a son. Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy doesn't have much on its mind besides delivering on fights - and in that aspect it succeeds. Viewers looking for an esoteric portrait of a master can check out Yau's films, those who prefer a bit of muted hagiography can go to Yip, and the art house crowd has Wong. The film's tangential connection to Ip Man gives Yuen the freedom to mix up the tone and themes, and he does so in baby steps. No one is completely right or wrong in Master Z, but Tin-chi suffers no ambiguities. Zhang, who broke out in The Grandmaster and SPL 2: A Time for Consequences, finally gets a chance to demonstrate some swagger and sex appeal in his most engaging lead performance yet, and in a perfect world it would make him a bigger star; one that could fill the gaps in Hong Kong wuxia scene. Just as unambiguous is Dave Bautista's Owen Davidson, an American businessman in Hong Kong and in the thick of the heroin trade. Most nuanced is Yeoh's Kwan, who must navigate the lines between what's good for her business, keeping her reckless brother in check and loyalty to him. And the sometimes-awkward relationship between Hong Kong and its various overlords is summed up by the reliable Philip Keung as a cop who does as he's told until he doesn't. The film is technically sound (even if the production could only locate one period-appropriate VW?), though the abrupt ending is a bit of a letdown that smacks of lazy writing, and Day Tai's soundtrack is occasionally off the mark. Overall, however, the lush production design by Raymond Chan, Joyce Chan's swanky '60s costuming and some astoundingly clever set pieces - a duel between Tin-chi and one of Kit's thugs atop of a strip of neon signs, a brilliantly old-school four-way fight at Cheung Kok's offices, a whiskey glass tango with Yeoh - more than make up for any plot flaws, with the exception of the shameful underuse of Tony Jaa as a mysterious assassin.