Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Danny Kwok-Kwan Chan, Woo-Ping Yuen... if you're familiar with these names, you know what to expect.
The fight scenes are a bit uneven and range from goofy excess to intense excellence. The parts taking place outside of the fight scenes are quite compressed and not really important.
Overall, not one of the better Ip Man movies
While I have loved Donnie Yen's Ip Man films, Ip Man 4: The Finale is easily the weakest of the lot, though I will still express my love of his portrayal of Bruce Lee's famous master as a cool, collected fighter with an underplayed sadness. And of course, the fight scenes are great, that's a given. Master Ip is nearing the end of his life, struggling with health issues and having lost his wife (who was one of the best things about the previous film), with raising a difficult teenage son. He travels to 1964 America to find a school for his boy (and meet up with his former pupil), and encounters grueling examples of racism there... and that's where the movie falls apart. While it's hard-coded into these films that Ip Man will have to fight some non-Chinese powerhouse (it's a Fists of Fury riff), it seemed to make more sense in the politically chaotic China/Hong Kong of previous films. The "white devils" in this one are all overreaching, disobeying orders from superiors, etc. without any sense there might be consequences. And there's the fact that all the English-speaking parts are terribly acted (or badly dubbed into "American"), not uncommon in HK fare, though also explained here by the fact that England doubles for California, so most aren't using their own accents. It just clashes with the more subtle Chinese cast, somehow finding themselves facing exploitation villains from the early 70s.
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jlfitz
Netflixdpanter
Donnie Yen, Scott Adkins, Danny Kwok-Kwan Chan, Woo-Ping Yuen... if you're familiar with these names, you know what to expect.The fight scenes are a bit uneven and range from goofy excess to intense excellence. The parts taking place outside of the fight scenes are quite compressed and not really important.
Overall, not one of the better Ip Man movies
Note: oppressive racism portrayed throughout.
Slightly recommended.
Siskoid
While I have loved Donnie Yen's Ip Man films, Ip Man 4: The Finale is easily the weakest of the lot, though I will still express my love of his portrayal of Bruce Lee's famous master as a cool, collected fighter with an underplayed sadness. And of course, the fight scenes are great, that's a given. Master Ip is nearing the end of his life, struggling with health issues and having lost his wife (who was one of the best things about the previous film), with raising a difficult teenage son. He travels to 1964 America to find a school for his boy (and meet up with his former pupil), and encounters grueling examples of racism there... and that's where the movie falls apart. While it's hard-coded into these films that Ip Man will have to fight some non-Chinese powerhouse (it's a Fists of Fury riff), it seemed to make more sense in the politically chaotic China/Hong Kong of previous films. The "white devils" in this one are all overreaching, disobeying orders from superiors, etc. without any sense there might be consequences. And there's the fact that all the English-speaking parts are terribly acted (or badly dubbed into "American"), not uncommon in HK fare, though also explained here by the fact that England doubles for California, so most aren't using their own accents. It just clashes with the more subtle Chinese cast, somehow finding themselves facing exploitation villains from the early 70s.Jace Lightner
Inspirational. What a beautiful filmHighly recommended
chunkylefunga
Really what 2 & 3 should have been like, rather than the weird fantasy cash grabs that we got.Decent storyline, which actually shows what racism is like in America.
Would have picked a different villain that some random american soldier, who in real life would have had his arse handed to him in a second :D