Review of Ip Man 3

I've seen the first two 'Ip Man' films with Donnie Chen in the title role, so with that said, this story felt like more of the same. What I mean is, there's an antagonist set up to challenge the Wing Chun master, and the fighting eventually involves a street brawl in which Ip Man takes on a veritable crowd of martial artists without too much of a problem. That takes realism right out of the story for me, as the mechanics of something like that are well nigh impossible. Interestingly, Ip Man has two principle foes in the story, a thug who terrorizes the local school with his band of rowdies, and an aspiring Wing Chun master who wants to prove his superiority over Ip Man. The first is dispatched rather handily by his own boss, portrayed by former boxer Mike Tyson in a role in which he seems a bit out of his element. What's somewhat different in this story is the focus on Ip Man's personal life and relationship with his wife and son. When he learns of Madame Ip's (Lynn Xiong ) cancer, Ip Man retreats from his duties at the school and spends more quality time with her, ignoring a challenge match with Cheung Tin-chi (Jin Zhang). The most impressive physical confrontation in the picture for me was the broad-knife fight between Ip man and Cheung, brought on by Madame Ip's secretly placed message to Cheung's son. It was convincingly well choreographed and looked incredibly dangerous, if in fact real weapons were being used. The picture ends on a somber note with the death of Madame Ip succumbing to her disease, thereby inserting some pathos to the career of the man recognized as the Master of Wing Chun style.