Ip Man 2: Legend of the Grandmaster

This sequel to 2008's Ip Man continues the life story of the titular legendary master of the Wing Chun style of martial arts (and Bruce Lee's teacher), picking up after the communist revolution has engulfed China. Ip Man (Donnie Yen) has relocated with his family to Hong Kong, where he opens an academy, but starting a new life in the British crown colony is no easy task: the school can barely keep its finances in order, while competing expert-practitioners look down on Ip as an unworthy interloper. Whereas the villains in the first film were the Japanese military occupiers of World War II–era China, Ip's new enemies are mostly British overlords. In a climax that bears more than a passing resemblance to a similar sequence in Akira Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata, Part II, director Wilson Yip stages an East-versus-West match that pits Ip against a muscular British boxer named Twister (Darren Shahlavi). Although the film's adherence to biographical accuracy is conspicuously weak, it more than compensates with the magnificent and often startling martial arts choreography created by Sammo Hung, who also steals the show in a supporting role as a rival who belatedly redeems himself against the corrupt British rulers. Recommended. (P. Hall)