Ip Man 3 (叶问 3)

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IP MAN 3  (叶问 3)

Director : Wilson Yip

Cast : Donnie Yen, Zhang Jin, Lynn Hung, Patrick Tam, Mike Tyson, Karena Ng

Genre : Martial-Arts/Drama

Run Time : 1 hr 44 mins

Opens : 24 December 2015

Rating : PG13 (Some Violence)

After a five year leave of absence from the role, Donnie Yen is back as legendary martial artist Ip Man. It is 1950 and things are going well for Ip Man, who is respected throughout the land, continuing to run his Wing Chun academy. Ip Chun, the son of Ip Man and his wife Cheung Wing-sing (Hung), gets into a schoolyard fight with Cheung Fong. It turns out that Cheung Fong is the son of rickshaw puller Cheung Tin-chi (Zhang), also a Wing Chun practitioner who is making money on the side in illegal fighting matches. Said matches are organised by American property developer Frank (Tyson), a crooked businessman who has the British Hong Kong police captain in his pocket. Local gangster Ma King-sang, working for Frank, terrorises the town, threatening the school that Ip Chun and Cheung Fong attend. As Ip Man’s disciples protect the innocent town folk, he must take on Frank and Cheung Tin-chi to prove his supremacy and safeguard his loved ones.

            Yen was initially reluctant to portray Ip Man a third time, saying of the second film “I believe it's best to end something when it's at perfection, and leave behind a good memory." “Perfection” is a very strong word, Donnie. The sheer number of Ip Man-centric projects that cropped up after the success of the first film were also a factor in turning Yen off returning. Somehow, Ip Man 3 happened anyway, with Yen saying this will close out the series for good. This is a mess, with the feeling that a great deal was changed from what director Wilson Yip intended to shoot. The screenplay by Edmond Wong, Lai-yin Leung and Chan Tai-Li comes across as incredibly choppy and lacking in focus. Sure, the action choreography by Yen, Yuen Shun-Yee and Yuen Woo-Ping is expectedly splendid, but it ultimately needs to be in service of a solid story, which just isn’t the case here.

The initial announcements that Mike Tyson had signed on to play the villain and that Bruce Lee would be resurrected via digital trickery both reeked of unabashed gimmickry. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and Lee is played instead by Danny Chan, who does a fun, if over-the-top impression of the pioneering action star. Chan’s movements are appropriately swift, though his attempt at Lee’s signature cocky grin borders on caricature. Chan previously played Lee in the 2008 biographical TV series The Legend of Bruce Lee. Chan bears an uncanny resemblance to Lee and this reviewer is relieved that this is what we got instead of a disconcerting floating CGI head. While it was originally suggested that director Yip’s objective was for Ip Man 3 to follow the master-disciple relationship between Ip Man and Lee, that’s more a B-plot than anything else.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, Tyson is in very little of the film and his is a C-plot. Those looking forward to a showdown along the lines of Rocky vs. Ivan Drago in Rocky IV will come away sorely disappointed. Ip Man doesn’t even meet Frank until more than an hour into the film. Tyson is no actor and looks extremely out of place in Ip Man 3, unable to beat the snatches of Cantonese dialogue he is given into submission. Of course, it wouldn’t be an Ip Man film without a serving of anti-Western sentiment, with a supercilious British police captain also showing up. At one point, Kent Cheng’s Sgt. Po says the line “the two foreign devils are in cahoots!” with nary a sense of irony.

Yen has considerable experience playing Ip Man and his is often considered the definitive portrayal of the master. Ip Man is a combination warrior-sage-saint with no shortcomings to speak of and therefore not terribly interesting, because the filmmakers are too preoccupied with respecting his status to take any risks with the characterisation. Any and all scenes involving Ip Man’s wife Cheung Wing-sing and his son Ip Chun are treacly and cloying. Ip Man also had two sons in real life, but only one shows up. The real-life Ip Chun, now 91, served as the martial arts consultant on this film, as with the two earlier instalments. It is a massive missed opportunity not to have the actual Ip Chun interact with the child version of him in the film in a cameo. Like Yen, Zhang Jin actually is an accomplished martial artist and as such genre aficionados should enjoy seeing the two duke it out. There is a degree of complexity to Zhang’s character, who is an antagonist but not an out-and-out villain, which is appreciated in a film lacking in subtlety.

Audiences have waited a while for the conclusion to Yen’s Ip Man trilogy and this is far from a truly satisfying final chapter. The stunt casting of Tyson isn’t exploited to its full potential and Ip Man taking Bruce Lee under his wing (chun), something which these films have been building up to, is treated like a side-plot. There are superbly-staged kungfu skirmishes aplenty, but it is difficult to recommend the film solely on that basis. Should’ve left it at two, Donnie.

Summary: Dynamic fights cannot rescue this scattershot threequel which closes out the Ip Man trilogy on an underwhelming note.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Kung Fu Jungle (一个人的武林)

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KUNG FU JUNGLE (一个人的武林)

Director : Teddy Chen

Cast : Donnie Yen, Wang Baoqiang, Charlie Young, Michelle Bai, Alex Fong, Louis Fan

Genre : Action/Thriller

Rating : PG13 (Violence) 

Run time: 100 mins

It’s a jungle out there – a kung fu jungle. In Teddy Chen’s martial arts flick, Donnie Yen’s Hahou Mo was once the king of that jungle. A skilled kungfu instructor and martial arts school proprietor who was responsible for training members of the Hong Kong Police, Hahou fell from grace after accidentally killing an opponent in a duel. In the midst of serving his five year prison term, Hahou hears about a series of murders on the news. A deranged fighter named Fung Ya-Sau (Wang) is targeting Hong Kong’s top martial arts practitioners in a bid to prove his supremacy in the various subsets – fistfighting, kickboxing, grappling, weapon-wielding and finally the use of “internal energy”. Hahou approaches Luk Yuen-Sun (Young), the policewoman leading the investigation to offer his expertise and is provisionally released to assist the police. He also reunites with his girlfriend Sinn Ying (Bai) who has been operating the school alone in his absence.

            Audiences get a kick out of seeing feats of well-honed physical prowess on display. That’s an integral part of the appeal of competitive sports and Cirque du Soleil-type performances. In cinema, the martial arts genre best exemplifies this. Kung Fu Jungle reunites star Donnie Yen with his Bodyguards and Assassins director Teddy Chen, with contemporary Hong Kong in place of the period setting of that film. Here, the plot exists primarily as a clothesline on which to hang the kungfu battles but all things considered, it’s not a bad clothesline at all. Our noble hero who’s been wronged has to prove his worth by assisting the wary police in pursuit of a dangerous foe. It’s reminiscent of the 1997 Gary Daniels-starrer Bloodmoon – that film’s director Tony Leung Siu Hong gets a cameo here. Hey, beats the bog-standard “underground martial arts tournament” plot device. We get some exciting set-pieces, including a fight on and around a giant suspended modern art sculpture of the human skeleton. There are chases on foot across rooftops and through canals on speedboats. There’s also a pretty fun meta moment when Ya-Sau storms onto a movie set to face off against action movie star Hung Yip (Fan).

            However, Kung Fu Jungle definitely has its lapses in logic and spots of unintentional humour. For example, when Ya-sau enters the film set to confront Hung Yip, the rest of the cast and crew just hightail it out of there and nobody calls for the cops to, at the very least, wait outside the studio to apprehend Ya-sau. There’s also a moment during the climactic clash when our hero, brandishing a long bamboo pole, is running after our villain, also brandishing a long bamboo pole. It’s very goofy and almost worthy of spontaneous Yakety Sax music. That said, Chen has largely achieved a tonal consistency and there aren’t annoyingly long comic relief interludes as can often pop up in this genre. The action choreography by Yen, Yuen Bun and Yan Hua is energetic, intense and creative, although there is more shaky-cam employed than we would’ve liked. Computer-generated effects in Hong Kong cinema are often jarring and dodgy so it’s a good thing that apart from just a few quick bits, the stunt work is all practical and well-executed.

            At 51, Donnie Yen is still as quick, spry and proficient a martial artist as ever and he just looks awesome onscreen. This reviewer is relieved that after the very embarrassing likes of Special I.D., Iceman and the abysmal Monkey King, Yen’s dignity is more than intact here. True, his acting range is somewhat limited, but “wrongly imprisoned martial arts master” is well within those limits and the focus is rightfully placed on his fighting rather than his acting. Wang Baoqiang works those crazed eyes for all they’re worth and although he does seem like a dangerous, credible opponent for our hero, he has a tendency to ham it up. The “skyward scream” he lets out during a flashback detailing his stock tragic back-story™ really pulls one out of what should’ve been a dramatic moment. Charlie Young does make for a believable woman in charge, though it’s nothing we haven’t seen before in this genre. Mdm. Luk doesn’t let Hahou catch a break and the partnership between the martial artist and the police is always somewhat rocky. Michelle Bai’s role is just that crucial bit more than “the girlfriend” thanks to a great swordfighting scene she gets to herself.

            Aficionados of Hong Kong martial arts movies will have fun keeping their eyes peeled for cameos from personalities key to the success of the genre, including veteran producer and Hong Kong cinema pioneer Raymond Chow, actress Sharon Yeung of Drunken Master and Angel on Fire fame and film historian/screenwriter Bey Logan. The movie ends with a great montage in tribute to many influential filmmakers and actors who have kept the martial arts movie tradition alive and kicking. Kung Fu Jungle does have its overwrought moments but the good number of exhilarating fights and leading man Donnie Yen’s presence makes this worth seeing for anyone who digs kungfu movies.

Summary: An uncomplicated plot, great action sequences, a palpable affection for its predecessors in this genre and Donnie Yen doing what he does best make this a fun rumble in the jungle.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Iceman 3D (冰封: 重生之门)

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ICEMAN 3D (冰封: 重生之门)

Director: Law Wing Cheong
Cast:  Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Eva Huang, Wang Baoqiang, Yu Kang, Hoi-Pang Lo, Mark Wu, Gregory Wong, Yang Jian-ping, Jacqueline Chong, Sukie Shek, Ava Liu
Genre: Action
Run Time: 105 mins
Opens: 17 April 2014
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)

The 1989 film The Iceman Cometh gets thawed and re-heated with this goofy remake starring Donnie Yen. Yen plays He Ying, an Imperial Guard from the Ming Dynasty framed for treason, flash-frozen in an avalanche and re-awoken in 2013. He Ying wanders through modern-day Hong Kong, a world utterly alien to him. At a Halloween party, he meets May (Huang), who upon recovering from a drunken stupor offers him shelter and gradually begins to fall in love with the 400+ year old Imperial Guard. Meanwhile, Sao (Wang) and Niehu (Yu), blood brothers-turned enemies of He Ying who were frozen alongside him, have also been defrosted, proceeding to scour Hong Kong for He Ying. Police chief Yuanlong (Yam) is also hot on He Ying’s tail as a mysterious connection he shares with the Iceman comes to light.

Iceman has had a troubled production process, going over-budget and over-schedule and running into multiple issues with location shooting in Hong Kong. The resulting film was 3.5 hours long and has been split into two parts, with the sequel slated to arrive this October. This probably accounts for the inconclusive ending. Stuffed with over the top, juvenile gags, many bodily function-related, Iceman drowns itself in slapstick, making it difficult to enjoy as a fantasy action epic. After awaking from cryo-sleep, He Ying’s first action is pretty much unleashing a stream of turbo pee which splatters across the windshield of an arriving car. Even the Ghost Rider urinating fire was less of an indignity than this.



Yes, a movie about a Ming Dynasty guard getting unfrozen in 2013 isn’t going to be a beacon of logical storytelling, but Iceman strains the suspension of disbelief well past the breaking point. It’s remarkable how readily May and her pals accept the fact that He Ying is who he says he is, none of them particularly fazed or bewildered by the ancient palace guard just crashing at May’s place. May’s stereotypically camp friend is somehow able to show He Ying actual video of the very avalanche in which he was frozen, and it’s left completely unexplained as to where that footage comes from. Was there someone around filming it 400 years ago? This is but one of the many, many plot holes Iceman is riddled with. Its scattershot storytelling robs the narrative of any drive or stakes. There’s something involving a MacGuffin called the Golden Wheel of Time that is supposedly a time travel device, but there’s so much pratfall-heavy mucking about that the actual plot gets little attention. He Ying only actually meets Sao and Niehu in the present day at around the 50 minute mark.

Donnie Yen, we think you’re a great martial artist and we love seeing you kick ass onscreen, just please stop making such bad movies. Over the last year, the likes of Special I.D. and The Monkey King have been major embarrassments. To put it simply: Donnie Yen leaping through the air, striking an assailant as he lands = good. Donnie Yen drinking out of a toilet, remarking how the “well water is so salty and stinky” = bad. As the female lead, May’s purpose in the narrative is confusing. Huang Shengyi and Donnie Yen share little chemistry, and an inordinate amount of screen time is dedicated to the two characters “bonding” with little plot development actually taking place. There’s even a shamelessly mawkish subplot involving May’s mother, on the brink of being evicted from a nursing home. Wang Baoqiang, Yu Kang and Simon Yam make for forgettable antagonists when the plot thread that binds them and He Ying could have been the source of considerable dramatic tension.



The premise of Iceman has understandably been compared to that of a certain shield-packing Marvel superhero, but it’s really more like Demolition Man, only even sillier than that 1993 Stallone sci-fi flick. We saw the 2D version, but even then it’s easy to tell how utterly gimmicky the 3D version surely is – look out for pieces of curry chicken hurtling out from the screen! The climactic showdown set on the Tsing Ma Bridge is a halfway decent, if flashy and cheesy, action sequence, but it’s far from enough to make up for the preceding mess. There’s some pretty bad CGI, especially during a snowboarding sequence. Guys, xXx was 12 years ago. At the time of this writing, the sequel’s title translates to Iceman 2: Back to the Future. We’ll just roll our eyes now and get over with it.

SUMMARY: Heavy on sophomoric jokes and “stuff flying at the camera” gags but low on fantasy action spectacle and any storytelling coherence, we recommend tossing this Iceman back in deep freeze storage and throwing away the key.

RATING: 1.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Monkey King

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The Monkey King (西游記之大鬧天宮)

Director: Soi Cheang Pou-soi
Cast: Donnie Yen, Chow Yun-Fat, Aaron Kwok, Joe Chen, Peter Ho, Kelly Chen, Zhang Zilin, Gigi Leung, Xia Zitong
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Run Time: 120 mins
Opens: 6 February 2014
Rating: PG

It’s the Year of the Horse, but Sun Wukong will have none of it, barging into theatres two years before the Year of the Monkey. The classical 16th Century novel Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en has inspired countless works across various forms of media, its opening chapters forming the basis for this origin story film. Starring Donnie Yen in the title role, this take on The Monkey King has been in the works for four years, with its release date postponed several times. Perhaps it should have never been released.






A catastrophic battle in the heavens is waged between the forces of the Bull Demon King (Kwok) and the Jade Emperor (Chow). In the aftermath of the fighting, the goddess Nüwa patches up the swathes of the sky that have been torn apart, resulting in the formation of a crystal egg on Flower Fruit Mountain. A magical monkey (Yen) hatches from the egg, more inquisitive, bolder and mischievous than his fellow monkeys who call the Mountain home. He forms a friendship/kinda-romance with a fox vixen (Xia) and trains under Master Puti (Hai Yitian), who christens the monkey “Sun Wukong”. The Bull Demon King has his sights set on Wukong as the key to taking over the Jade Emperor’s realm; Wukong going about wreaking havoc in the heavens.



There’s no questioning the cultural and historical importance of Journey to the West, a novel that definitely deserves as epic a cinematic treatment as can be given. The only thing “epic” about The Monkey King is the sheer levels of fail. Trying to take in the mind-boggling mess that is this film, one can only imagine the chaos that must have gone on behind the scenes, that in the span of four years, this sorry slop is the best director Cheang Pou-soi and his crew could come up with. The cluttered screenplay by Szeto Kam Yuen and Edmond Wong heaves with exposition and pointless dialogue, robbing the film of the spirit of grand adventure that is a signature element of Journey to the West.



Chief of the cinematic crimes committed by The Monkey King is just how ghastly it all looks. One of the most important tasks every fantasy film has to accomplish is that of inviting its audience to partake in its world; to woo the viewer with breath-taking scenery and convince them of the reality of a fabricated, cinematic world. The Monkey King does none of this, looking staggeringly, ridiculously phony at every turn. Given the many mythical creatures in the story and its settings of heaven, hell, the paradise of Flower Fruit Mountain and the undersea domain of the Dragon King of the East Sea, The Monkey King is heavily reliant on green screen work. This reviewer didn’t buy the digitally-created backgrounds for a half second.


Veteran Hollywood visual effects supervisors Kevin Rafferty and David Ebner were in charge of the CGI work on this film, Rafferty’s credits including The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Casper, Deep Impact and The Perfect Storm and Ebner’s including Spider-Man 3, Underworld: Evolution and Sin City. What exactly happened here?! Most of the effects work looks jarringly half-rendered, textureless and incomplete and the creature designs, looking like they belong at a school play instead of a major motion picture, are laughable. The 3D effects are noticeable – by that, we mean they are constantly hammered into your eyes. The intention is for this…thing to be presented in IMAX 3D, a format which would surely make the myriad flaws in the execution of the film’s effects work all the more painfully obvious.

Caked in prosthetic makeup, zipped into an unintentionally hilarious orange fur suit and looking a whole lot like Jim Carrey’s Grinch, Donnie Yen takes on the legendary role of the simian troublemaker, in addition to choreographing the film’s action. Yen’s physicality is admirable, but it’s clearly hampered by the costume and the armour on top of that, and his impression of a monkey mostly involves blinking really fast. Yes, Sun Wukong is meant to be an unapologetic trickster who gets in everybody’s business, but boy, he certainly makes for a supremely annoying protagonist. It’s not impossible to make Wukong sympathetic, seeing as he’s the kind of character that earns a free pass from the audience by dint of his antics just being that entertaining, but Yen is unable to do so. Worst of all, Yen is given barely one scene to strut his martial arts prowess, and that’s the thing he’s the best at.



The rest of the supporting cast stands around a whole lot, with nothing required from Chow Yun Fat except looking royal and respectable, which he does well enough given that it’s impossible to take anyone seriously up against that terrible CGI backdrop. Aaron Kwok’s take on the Bull Demon King is less “monstrous” and more “sexy”, so this is achieved by gluing horns to his forehead. Joe Chen’s Princess Iron Fan is reduced to “constantly nagging wife”. Kelly Chen, Zhang Zilin and Gigi Leung’s roles as Nüwa, Chang’e and Guan Yin respectively are but cameos. There is a mildly amusing mid-air chase sequence involving Calvin Cheng’s Nezha.

The name “Wukong” means “to be awakened to emptiness”. If only those responsible for The Monkey King had been awakened to the futility of this exercise. It’s inauspicious to break things during Chinese New Year. Well, this movie just broke Journey to the West.

Summary: Donnie Yen said of putting on the makeup and costume, "it's very painful." After sitting through this, we can totally relate.

RATING: 1 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Special ID

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SPECIAL ID 

Director: Clarence Fok
Cast: Donnie Yen, Collin Chou, Andy On, Tian Jing, Zhang Hanyu, Ronald Cheng
Genre: Action, Crime
Run Time: 99 mins
Opens: 18 October 2013
Rating: NC16 (Violence and Coarse Language)

In recent years, martial artist and action star Donnie Yen has become best-known for playing Ip Man, the nigh legendary Wing Chun master and mentor to Bruce Lee. However, Yen has expressed a desire to star in action flicks with a more contemporary setting such as SPL and this latest rather regrettable flick.



Yen plays Chen Zilong, an undercover Hong Kong police officer who has spent the last eight years of his career embedded deep within the murky criminal underworld. Xiong (Chou), the head of the gang, has made it clear that any traitors in the midst will pay dearly. Concerned for the safety of his beloved mother Amy (Paw Hee-ching), Zilong wants out. However, the resurgence of former disciple Sunny (On), now a feared gangster after spending the last three years in the States, throws a spanner in that plan. Zilong must reluctantly travel to Nanhai and partner up with Chinese policewoman Fang Jing (Tian) to confront Sunny and put a stop to a vicious gang war.

There really isn’t anything special about the premise. At all. Alright, there’s that joke out of the way. The film was plagued by myriad production troubles, including the storming off the project of Zhao Wenzhuo, who was replaced by Andy On. It’s hard to tell if all the problems with the movie were a result of this or were inherent since Special ID’s inception as Ultimate Codebreak (we can’t decide which title is sillier).



The film is something of a mess, its threadbare plot serving only to string together a series of action set pieces. Many recent Hong Kong films have suffered from tonal discrepancies. While it isn’t as bad here as in something like Blind Detective, the film’s lack of a commitment to the gritty tone the poster and some of the fights imply is crippling. There are comedic interludes and laughable would-be moments of pathos, the latter accompanied by a sappy piano score. It’s as if the movie has no idea what to do when someone isn’t punching someone else, flailing as the next stunt is being set up.

Donnie Yen fans, forgive us: the guy is a martial artist first and an actor second. Sure, he’s an all-around badass and we certainly wouldn’t want to get on the guy’s bad side. Plus, his proficiency with mixing elements from the likes of Wing Chun and Brazillian Jiu-jitsu make for some pretty exciting brawls. And there’s the added bonus of not having to edit around a stunt double. However, whenever he has to emote, especially during dialogue scenes with leading lady Tian Jing, the result is more awkward than Michael Cera giving a speech during school assembly in his underwear. The through-the-roof cringe-worthy levels in those parts of the film are jarring given the ferocity of the hand-to-hand melees.



Andy On plays antagonist Sunny with posturing bravado and sports a perpetually half-unbuttoned shirt. For no apparent reason, the Rhode Island native breaks into bursts of English dialogue to show off his American accent. He’s relatively charismatic and handsome, but the relationship between Sunny and Zilong, the man who’s taught him all he knows, is undeveloped and unmined.

Tian Jing, with her doe eyes and heart-shaped face, attempts to strike a balance between a capable cop who can hold her own in a fight with scary gangland types or hang off the door of a speeding SUV with no problem, and a vulnerable woman who seems psychologically ill-prepared for the job. Her only defining character trait seems to be that she’s a Hello Kitty fan (cue Sanrio product placement). Most of the time, the dynamic between Fang Jing and Zilong is pretty much that of two third graders. “Teacher, he’s being a bully!” “She started it!” It gets annoying.



The only way Special ID might be able to pass muster is if one took all the action sequences out of context and just put them together as a stunt choreography highlight reel. Clarence Fok, director of trashy cult classic Naked Killer, isn’t known for his subtlety and true to form, Special ID is filled with characters yelling every other line. And when it tries to be sensitive, it falls flat on its face, in stark contrast with the control and agility put on display in its martial arts fights.

SUMMARY: If Special ID were to be personified as a real undercover cop, it would have broken cover at the first possible moment. A disappointment despite some cool fisticuffs.

RATING: 2 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong