Ye Wen: Zong shi jue xing

The story line was boring and definitely not attention catching. The action scenes were really great but apart from that. Boring and totally bad compared to the previous IP MAN movies.

Bad. Just really bad. It seems like everything moves in slow motion, even the fight scenes seem to move in slow-mo. That's so bad.

It's just amazing to know that there are so many bad directors out there making stupid movies.

Just so so bad.

Those responsible for this ignoble movie should at least be fined for defaming the Yip Man legend.

They did not even try to tell something new and even less original: they just patched up a few episodes from the previous fine films with some unbelievable ludicrous evil characters with the gullible heroes they were just dumb enough to conceive.

This doesn't feel like Ip Man at all. Not just that, but as far as martial arts movies go it wasn't even enjoyable. The acting was bad, the story was bad, everything about this felt really sub par. I may have enjoyed it as a bad martial arts movie more if it wasn't trying to pass itself off as an Ip Man movie.

Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time on this. The martial arts felt more 80s martial arts than modern day. The acting was rough, I struggled to watch the fights. This is not anywhere close to Donnie Yen quality.

One reviewer stated that it slaps Donnie Yen in the face; I didn't really mind that they cast Tse Miu (who oddly is not listed in the casting) to play Yen's character at a young age, his acting was actually decent. But the problem wasn't that Yen wasn't cast, it's that it lacked Wilson Yip's directorial magic, and Edmond Wong's creative writing - both of whom did all the previous Ip Man films (I've seen them all) that made me a fan of the franchise. The real slap in the face goes to those two, because it's evident this film was missing their magical touches, especially the fight scenes.

Here, you have two directors in this one - Li Xi Jie and Zhang Zhu Lin, and Fang Lan and Liu Bayin as writers, who instead gave us 1980's slow-mo cheesy and sappy scenes. Some of the choreography, especially at the beginning, was just as bad as the writing and directing.

Although the cinematography was up to par as the previous films, and the actual story had its merits, the rest of the production was a let-down of my expectations. Would I recommend this one? Well, if you're a fan of the franchise, it's a decent (but not great) origin story, so I'd say yes. But don't have high expectations like I did, as this production if far from the greatness we'd expect from Yip and Wong. Hopefully this mess inspires them to give up a better origin film. Sadly, it's a generous 6/10 from me, most going to the cast who I'm sure tried their best with what they were given.