Ip Man 4: The Finale

叶问4  完结篇

Hong Kong/China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 106 mins.

Director: Ye Weixin 叶伟信 [Wilson Yip].

Rating: 7/10.

The fights are the main thing in this good but not knockout conclusion to the series, set in the 1960s.

STORY

San Francisco, mid-Sep 1964, just prior to the Mid-Autumn Festival. Ye Wen (Zhen Zidan) – popularly known by his Cantonese name Ip Man – attends an international karate tournament in which his onetime pupil Li Xiaolong (Chen Guokun) is competing. (In Hong Kong, a month earlier, Ye Wen had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Billy [Simon Shiyamba], a black American student of Li Xiaolong, had arrived at his training school with an invitation and plane ticket for Ye Wen to attend the tournament, as well as a copy of Li Xiaolong’s English manual Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Self-Defense_ 中国基本拳法. Billy had told him that Li Xiaolong had just opened a second martial-arts school in San Francisco, after his original one in Seattle. Ye Wen had decided to go as it would be a convenient opportunity to explore the possibility of enrolling his son Ye Zheng [Ye He] in a US high school. The moody teenager, who had just been expelled from secondary school for persistent fighting, was against the idea, preferring to study martial arts under his father; but Ye Wen had gone ahead, asking his old friend, policeman Bo [Zheng Zeshi], to look after Ye Zheng while he was away. Ye Wen had been met by his friend, journalist Liang Gen [Ao Jianian], who’d since moved to the US, and had been taken to meet Chinatown bigwig Wan Zonghua [Wu Yue], a martial-arts master and head of the Chinese Benevolent Association, whose letter of recommendation Ye Wen needed to enrol his son in a school. Ye Wen had been warmly welcomed by another old friend who’d moved there, master Luo [Luo Mang], but got a cool reception from Wang Zonghua and Chinatown’s seven other masters. Wan Zonghua had told him to first resolve the problem of Li Xiaolong’s arrogance in taking on non-Chinese pupils and publishing the English manual as if he was the official spokesman for Chinese martial arts. Ye Wen had defended Li Xiaolong and, after a tense stand-off with Wan Zonghua, left the meeting.) After the tournament Ye Wen and Li Xiaolong are having a quiet drink when some boastful American contestants insult Li Xiaolong and his students. Li Xiaolong singlehandedly teaches them a lesson. Ye Wen finally gets a letter of recommendation with the help of Chinese American Hartman Wu (Wu Jianhao), a marines staff sergeant who was a pupil of Li Xiaolong. But Sullivan High School, an exclusive private establishment, says he still needs an official letter from Wan Zonghua. On his way out, Ye Wen saves Wan Ruonan (Li Wanda) from being bullied by the racist Becky (Grace Englert) and her male friends, as Wan Ruonan had been appointed head cheerleader over her. Ye Wen takes Wan Ruonan home safely but her father blames her for standing up to the white Americans; he also still refuses to write the letter for Ye Wen, unless the latter can beat him in a fight. Their contest, however, is interrupted by a small earthquake. Meanwhile, at the US Marine Corps Base Camp, Hartman Wu tries to introduce Chinese martial arts into training but gets beaten by karate trainer Colin Frater (Chris Collins), encouraged by the battalion’s racist gunnery sergeant Barton Geddes (Scott Adkins). Hartman Wu goes over the latter’s head and appeals to the sergeant-major (John Cruz), who agrees to further research into the idea. Enraged, Barton Geddes and Colin Frater decide to take on Chinatown’s masters during the Mid-Autumn Carnival. Meanwhile, Becky’s father Andrew, an official at the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service, gets revenge for his daughter’s treatment by holding Wan Zonghua responsible for all of Chinatown’s illegal workers.

REVIEW

After seemingly ending the Ye Wen [Ip Man] saga with the mellow but dramatically disappointing Ip Man 3 叶问3 (2015), actor Zhen Zidan 甄子丹 [Donnie Yen] and the whole Hong Kong gang – producer Huang Baiming 黄百鸣 [Raymond Wong], director Ye Weixin 叶伟信 [Wilson Yip], lead writer Huang Zihuan 黄子桓 [Edmond Wong, son of Raymond], plus many key crew – return for one more go, and another chance to make even more money, with the aptly named Ip Man 4: The Finale 叶问4  完结篇. Similarly mellow in overall tone, but with much better fight staging this time by veteran Yuan Heping 袁和平, it doesn’t deliver as a wham-bang finale but has the same welcome echoes of old-school Hong Kong productions of the period, while notably reviving the bare-knuckle nationalism of the first two instalments, with the enemy this time being white US racism during the mid-1960s. From modest beginnings, this Ip Man series has turned into a reasonable cash cow in the Mainland – RMB85 million (2008), RMB231 million (2010), RMB770 million (2015) – and during the end-of-year period IM4 took more than all the previous three combined, with a hunky RMB1.2 billion for a series total of some RMB2.27 billion.

With several extra wrinkles, the film revives the original idea of IM3 – to focus on the relationship between Ye Wen and his most famous pupil, Li Xiaolong 李小龙 [Bruce Lee], during the autumn of Ye Wen’s life. That idea was originally ditched when no actor could be found to convincingly portray the latter in the necessary depth; IM4 doesn’t go into the relationship in any detail but still uses the same actor, Hong Kong’s Chen Guokun 陈国坤, who played the role in a couple of scenes in IM3 – and to good effect, especially in the fights that dominate the movie. Li Xiaolong is portrayed sympathetically rather than as a cocky upstart, but his influence pervades the script by using the racism that plagued his early career in the US as the film’s main theme.

In a similar way to the anti-Japanese nationalism that pervaded Li Xiaolong’s Hong Kong films, IM4 plays to the gallery in its depiction of anti-Chinese white racism, at personal and institutional levels as well as its weary acceptance by US-based Chinese. This all fits with the series’ deliberately retro tone, with simple plotting, cardboard characters, and action setpieces shot without visual trickery. The American roles – taken to the extreme by Scott Adkins’ US Marines sergeant – are way o.t.t.; but thus it always was in Hong Kong martial-arts pictures of the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially in Golden Harvest productions. Adkins, 43, a British-born martial artist who started in Hong Kong films almost 20 years ago, chews the scenery to superb effect as the Yank white supremacist, reserving his whiplash fighting skills for a couple of memorable setpieces near the end vs. Mainland wushu champion Wu Yue 吴樾 and finally Zhen himself.

Set in autumn 1964, five years after IM3, the story starts with Ye Wen being diagnosed with the throat cancer that was to kill him on 2 Dec 1972, aged 79. In common with the previous films, the script plays fast and loose with the facts of his life – for a start, Zhen, a still-trim 56, hardly looks 70 here, and Ye Wen’s moody son Ye Zheng, portrayed here as a problem teen, was actually almost 30 at the time – but that hardly matters in Zhen’s take on the title character as the patient embodiment of the traditional virtue of rěn 忍. When Our Hero, already knowing his days are numbered, travels to San Francisco to re-meet his onetime Yong Chun [Wing Chun] student Li Xiaolong, as well as to research putting Ye Zheng into an American high school, he finds anti-Chinese racism rampant and even the local Chinatown leader (Wu) pitted against him. The plot then sets up a series of conflicts that are settled, in traditionally pyramidal fashion, through fights during the final 40 minutes, all set during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Those fights, much more tightly staged and choreographed than those in IM3, are the film’s major draw, pushing the simple story ahead as per the rules of the genre. Chen, 44, is believable in a back-alley set-to between Li Xiaolong and an oafish American fighter, as is Taiwan American actor-singer Wu Jianhao 吴建豪 [Van Ness Wu], 41, as a crewcut marine championing Chinese martial arts. Among the real martial artists, Adkins is standout as both a screen presence and practitioner, while Hong Kong-based former US marine Chris Collins comes a close second as the racist karate instructor. Amid all of them, Zhen effortlessly holds the film together, in a masterclass of minimalist acting that’s all the more effective given the other characters’ old-school exaggeration.

Several previous characters clock in reliably for this final leg, including Zheng Zeshi 郑则仕 [Kent Cheng] as Ye Wen’s police pal, Ao Jianian 敖嘉年 as a reporter friend and Luo Mang 罗莽 as a martial-arts master. In a movie that’s light on female characters, with Ye Wen’s late wife (played by Mainland-born Xiong Dailin 熊黛林) only referenced in brief flashbacks, Yunnan-born Li Wanda 李宛妲, aka Vanda Margraf, 16, shoulders most of the distaff side in an okay debut as the Chinatown leader’s daughter, avoiding pure cuteness. In a rapid montage of Ye Wen’s life near the end, most of the main stars from the series are briefly glimpsed.

Technical contributions are mostly strong, from the sets and costumes by series regulars Mai Guoqiang 麦国强 [Kenneth Mak] and Li Bijun 利碧君 [Lee Pik-kwan] to the tight cutting by editor Zhang Jiahui 张嘉辉 [Cheung Ka-fai] and oldstyle-lit visuals by series newcomer Zheng Zhaoqiang 郑兆强 [Cheng Siu-keung]. Scoring by Japan’s Kawai Kenji 川井憲次 is again just wallpaper. The film was shot in Hong Kong, the Mainland and the UK.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Bona Cultural Media (CN), Mandarin Motion Pictures (HK). Produced by Mandarin Motion Pictures (HK).

Script: Huang Zihuan [Edmond Wong], Fukazawa Hiroshi, Chen Dali, Liang Liyan [Jill Leung]. Photography: Zheng Zhaoqiang [Cheng Siu-keung]. Editing: Zhang Jiahui [Cheung Ka-fai]. Music: Kawai Kenji. Art direction: Mai Guoqiang [Kenneth Mak]. Costume design: Li Bijun [Lee Pik-kwan]. Sound: Li Yaoqiang. Action: Yuan Heping. Visual effects: Lin Jiale. Yong Chun advice: Ye Zheng [Ip Ching], Ye Zhun [Ip Chun], Li Zhenhui.

Cast: Zhen Zidan [Donnie Yen] (Ye Wen), Wu Yue (Wan Zonghua), Wu Jianhao [Van Ness Wu] (Hartman Wu, marines staff sergeant), Scott Adkins (Barton Geddes, marines gunnery sergeant), Zheng Zeshi [Kent Cheng] (Fei Bo/Bob), Chen Guokun (Li Xiaolong/Bruce Lee), Ao Jianian (Liang Gen), Chris Collins (Colin Frater, karate trainer), Li Wanda (Wan Ruonan/Yonah, Wan Zonghua’s daughter), Luo Mang (Luo, master), Ye He (Ye Zheng, Ye Wen’s son), Andrew Lane (Andrew, Becky’s father), Nicola Stuart Hill (Gabrielle, Becky’s mother), Grace Englert (Becky), Zhou Xiaofei (Jiang, master), Gao Qiang (Qiu, master), Pan Xuchuan (Han, master), Shi Feng (Chen, master), Miao Liang (Liu, master), Wang Kanwei (Lei, master), Bi Hanwen (Tan, master), Dang Shanpeng, Chen Shaohua (Chinatown masters), Pan Jian (Uncle Gui), Simon Shiyamba (Billy), Linda Jean Barry (Strickland, Sullivan High School headmistress), Adrian Wheeler (Wright), Hannah Templeton-Max (cheerleader trainer), Liang Daxian (Ye Wen’s lead student), Wang Xiao, Zhang Qiangxian, Xiang Yang, Feng Shaohong, Li Di, Ma Yunlu, Ma Yunbao (Ye Wen’s students), Cao Shiping (Hong Kong secondary-school headmaster), Qin Yue (Auntie San), John Cruz (marines sergeant-major), Li Yikun (Ye Zheng’s classmate), He Mengqi (Lisa, Wan Ruonan’s classmate), Craig Canning (Becky’s boyfriend), Xiong Dailin (Zhang Yongcheng, Ye Wen’s late wife).

Release: Hong Kong, 20 Dec 2019; China, 20 Dec 2019.