Wilson Yip (director) / Edmond Wong (screenplay)

CAST :

Donnie Yen … Ip Man
Lynn Hung … Yong
Simon Yam … Quan
Sammo Hung … Hung
Xiaoming Huang … Wong Leung
Siu-Wong Fan … Jin
Darren Shahlavi…Twister

“Ip Man 2″ picks up where “Ip Man” left off. Ip Man (Donnie Yen) travels to Hong Kong with his family with the intent to propagate Wing Chun to the Hong Kong masses. The first hour charts the establishment and proliferation of Wing Chun by Ip Man. The hero is confronted with poverty, zero recognition, and threats from others masters for the right to teach.

The climax of the film shows Ip Man and Hung focusing their energies on defeating loudmouth British boxing champ Twister, played by Hong Kong stuntman Darren Shahlavi.

Apparently, the sequel is basically a rehash of the first movie’s major plot, showing Ip Man defeating the other masters, followed by his humbling of arrogant foreigners.

The speed of Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung is impressive. Their fight, which serves as the main selling point, ends in a draw. However, I must say the script does a grave disservice to Simon Yam’s Quan and Fan Siu Wong’s Jin, where both are completely wasted as there are not many fighting scenes with Jin and not at all for Fan.

Ip Man 2 depicts Chinese culture in its truest form, as simple as of drinking tea, to respecting teachers and patriotism for your motherland.

I suppose if you’re a real connoisseur of martial arts, there is some pleasure to be gleaned from the two men’s divergent fighting style.