IP MAN 3

Hong Kong/China, 2015, 105 minutes, Colour.
Donnie Yen, Lynn Xiong, Jin Zhang, Mike Tyson, Patrick Tam, Kent Cheng.
Directed by Wilson Yip.

With the success of the first two films of the trilogy, Wilson Yip continues with this third instalment and Donnie Yen reprising his role as Ip Man.

The action has moved on 10 years since the second film. We are in the late 1950s, still in Hong Kong. Ip Man has strengthened his reputation in the city. He still has his family although one of his sons, the oldest, has gone to study in Macau.

One of the main themes of this film shows gangsters interesting in acquiring the property of the school which his younger son attends, exploiting it for rebuilding and financial gain. Police are guarding the property at nights. However, concerned parents meet leading to movement and action against the gangsters, the opportunity for some martial arts.

The other aspect of the plot is the rivalry with another parent who intends to become the Grand Master. At first, he collaborates with Ip Man for the protection of the school but gets in league with entrepreneurs and goes his own competitive way, using sinister techniques and manipulation to undermine Ip Man, building up to a final confrontation.

Ip Man is also concerned about his wife and her terminal illness.

Audiences were happy to have the continuation of saga and more of the same.

1. The popularity of the original film? The origins of Ip Man and his martial arts skills? His teaching? The sequel and the moving to Hong Kong after World War II? Establishing himself? Competitiveness in Hong Kong? The harsh colonial attitudes of the British?

2. The sequel and the late 1950s, early 1960s? Ip Man and his role in Hong Kong, his school, his reputation? The importance of family? Relationship with his wife? The significance of her illness? The older son in Foshan? The younger son at school in Hong Kong?

3. The importance of the martial arts sequences, their choreography? Demonstrations, fights, competitiveness? The Chinese arts? The experience of Western boxing and its intrusion, brutality? The presence of Mike Tyson in this film, his character, dealings, Western, fights? The fight in the elevator?

4. The issue of the school, the property buyers, the use of force, arson? The threat to the principal? To the teachers? The response? The appeal to the police? The parents and their standing guard?

5. The rival parent, his daughter at school, combining with Ip Man to protect the school? Yet his envy, rivalry, in the pay of the criminals, the challenge to Ip Man?

6. Ip Man, his dignity, bearing, fighting skills, communicating them? In the service of the school? The competitions? The challenge from his rival?

7. The fights, the detail, the choreography, Ip Man and his victory?

8. The visual symbolism, nature, butterflies, beauty?

9. The pathos of his wife’s illness? His devotion?

10. The young Bruce Lee coming to see him, the previous visit when he was a child, boasting? The discussion about martial arts and style? Bruce Lee’s future?