Martial arts movie buffs have had it rough lately. Bruce Lee is long gone, Jackie Chan still makes a lot of movies but, while he’s remarkably spry for a man in his 50s (especially one who’s been sustaining regular injuries for 3 decades now), he’s still a man in his 50s. Jet Li is on the wrong side of 40 and he’s no longer able to kick people in the face like he used to.

There is good news for martial arts movie fans though, and it’s in the form of “Ip Man” – a semi-fictional story about the Chinese Wing Chun master who later became Bruce Lee’s teacher.

The story takes place in Foshan around the time of the Japanese occupation. Donny Yen plays Ip Man (or Ye Wen if you’re watching it in Mandarin), and though his acting skills are only a notch or two above Jet Li’s, the time he spent hanging out with Ip Man’s sons and efforts to capture Man’s air have paid off.

Overall, the acting is good good, and the nationalist, quasi-moralistic plot creates enough impetus for the actions scenes which, after all, are the whole point.

Fight choreographer Sammo Hung strove to keep the moves as purely Wing Chun as possible and the ensuing fight scenes are awesome. You catch glimpses of Yen, absolutely calm, always in the eye of a storm of arms, feet, and axes. He powers through and around a cadre of gi clad judokas and when he finds himself fighting, barehanded, an angry man armed with an scary looking sword Man’s response is to pluck out a feather duster and gives the guy a good whacking with it.

“Ip Man” is a perfect balance of plot, character development, and thrilling fight scenes full of lyrical moves performed with grace and power.

There’s even more good news: filming for Ip Man 2 is scheduled to start in August 2009. The filmmakers are said to be looking at pop stars Jay Chou or Aaron Kwok to play Bruce Lee.

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