Master Z: Ip Man Legacy

A martial arts film set in Hong Kong. Cheung Tin-chi lost a fight. The man across from him was Ip Man. He stopped fighting after that day. He now runs a grocery. He lives with his son and tells nobody who he is. One night he helps a woman leaving a bar. A fight starts and he fights unwillingly. The men are from a gang. From there the film is a story of withdrawal. Cheung does not want to be involved and the matter will not leave him. His shop is burned. He and his son are on the street. A bar owner helps him. Nana runs a bar and knows the balance of the neighbourhood. The gang sells drugs. They have built a network in the district and nobody stands against them. There is a businessman behind them. Owen owns a restaurant chain; he looks clean and he takes the real money. What the narrative is interested in is not revenge but responsibility: its idea is that the man giving up fighting is not a virtue, and that the people of the neighbourhood pay for it. The fights are the film's reason for existing. One section takes place on a sign. Two men fight above the street, on neon letters. Yuen Woo-ping built the choreography himself and keeps the camera inside the movement. There is a woman character as well. She runs a kung fu school and has a short but effective section. The structure is a spin-off. Cheung Tin-chi appeared in the third film of the Ip Man series and this one separates out his story. Ip Man is not in this film at all. Max Zhang, Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh, Tony Jaa and Liu Yan are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes Hong Kong martial arts cinema and action built on choreography. Who it is not for: anyone looking for story; the plot is wholly standard and the characters wait between fights.