Blu-ray Movie Reviews

"Ip Man" is an award winning adaptation based on the life of Ip Man, the grandmaster of Wing Chun and later teacher and mentor to widely influential and legendary martial artist, Bruce Lee. "Ip Man" is set in the 1930s in Foshan, a hub of southern Chinese martial arts just as the Second Sino-Japan war breaks out. During the war, China is nearly ripped to pieces by racial hatred, nationalistic strife and warfare. Ip Man rose like a phoenix above these ashes as he defied an empire bringing hope to China.

This is one of the better martial arts movies of the last few years and my favorite with martial arts legend Donnie Yen. Rather than an all out martial arts action fest, this film features the story of martial arts legend Ip Man and the perils he endured during the Japanese occupation of China. The film has a solid story arc and amazing action sequences punctuated by a solid performance by Yen.

I already had the Hong Kong Blu-ray release of this film from some time ago and this looks to be pretty much identical from a video standpoint. Detail and definition can be quite good but there are some obvious artifacts that appear to be from either compression or something from the video capture. This results in some occasional smearing in motion. I only noticed this a couple times, but enough to comment on. Overall though this is a very detailed transfer with great color balance and contrast. The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 in the original dub along with two other dub options. While the track features good dynamic range the dubbing is slightly off, even in the native language, which can be a bit distracting. This was also the case with my import edition and looks to be an issue with the production more than the Blu-ray.

Extras include some behind the scenes features and deleted scenes. You also get a shooting diary and interviews with the cast and crew. The trailer is also included.

I just received the Blu-ray of the sequel of this movie from overseas and look forward to checking it out. Fans of martial arts should definitely give this one a look but I would probably recommend a rental overall given the quirks with the A/V presentation.