Ip Man 3

Third in the series, they’ve played out this character for too long. Even the actor Donnie Yen said he wouldn’t do a third one, yet here it is. There appears to be a link between the number in the series and the number of storylines found in the movie’s plot. The first film had one storyline, the second had two, this one had three.

Mike Tyson feels out of place and it seems the first arc was written separately from his fight scene. That is to say, his exclusion from the film would have been inconsequential. Tyson’s story ends abruptly with the fight and referring to his conflict, he just says to “let it go, there will be another one”. A disappointing ending to a disappointing story. The rivalry with the cart-puller is uninteresting, and Ip Man clearly doesn’t care. So why should the audience? The real story is the one taking place in the background the whole time, with his carelessness about his wife’s wellbeing. If they just focused the movie on that and not make it a substory to an action film, it would have made a better movie.

But this Ip Man series is about the action, and that’s where it is both enjoyable but also not. Martial arts films are always captivating, but this one fails to capture Wing Chun in an appreciative way. In a farfetched attempt to outplay the prior films, Ip Man joins ridiculous fights and doesn’t actually win any of them. The first film had cool and focused choreography. The second film introduced many schools of fighting. This film just throws a large quantity of enemies at him and nothing is accomplished.