Ip Man

In 1935, Foshan is a hub of Southern Chinese martial arts, where the various schools' students compete against each other. Ip Man, the most skilled martial artist in town, maintains a low profile while building a reputation for skill through friendly, closed-door competitions with other masters. One day, a local troublemaker named Yuan loses his kite, which lands in a tree in the Ip family's backyard. While retrieving it, Yuan witnesses Ip defeating fellow kung fu master Liu in a sparring match, and spreads the news around town, inadvertently embarrassing Liu. Yuan's brother Lin, a restaurant owner and disciple of Liu, publicly causes embarrassment to Yuan as he tries to arrange a rematch between Liu and Ip. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ip and his family are forced to move into a decrepit apartment after the Imperial Japanese Army confiscates the house for use as their military headquarters. Desperate to support his family, Ip finds work at a coal mine alongside Lin, who hopes to reconcile with his brother for humiliating him but has so far failed to track him down. General Miura, a Japanese Karate master, sets up an arena where Chinese martial artists can fight with his military trainees for a bag of rice. Former police officer Li Zhao, now an interpreter for the Japanese, offers the martial artists the opportunity to fight in the arena. Ip at first declines to participate, but agrees to go following Lin's disappearance after taking part. At the arena, Ip witnesses Liu being executed by Miura's deputy Colonel Sato, for picking up a bag of rice from a prior victory after surrendering in a second match against three karateka. Deducing that Lin was killed in his fight against Miura, Ip demands a match with ten karateka at once, whom he brutally defeats. His skill arouses the interest of Miura, who asks Ip to return. Ip collects Liu's bag of rice and gifts it to his surviving family. Jin Shanzhao, a highly skilled Northern Chinese martial arts master who once defeated most of the masters in Foshan but was in turn beaten by Ip, now leads a bandit gang and harasses the workers at a cotton mill run by Ip's friend Chow Ching-chuen. Ip agrees to train the workers in Wing Chun for self-defence. The workers are able to stall the gang when they return, as Ip arrives to defeat Jin and Yuan, now a part of the gang. After the fight, Ip confronts Yuan and gives him a small tin that belonged to Lin after informing him of his brother's death. Yuan opens the tin and finds his kite inside; this motivates Yuan to leave the gang. When Ip does not return to the arena, Miura sends Sato, along with several soldiers, to track Ip down. After overpowering them at the apartment, Ip and his family flee and hide in Li's house. The Japanese track Ip to the cotton mill and take the workers hostage. Despite Li's warnings, Ip surrenders himself to the Japanese while arranging for his wife and son to be sent to Hong Kong for protection. Miura asks Ip to train the Japanese soldiers in Chinese martial arts, but Ip refuses and challenges Miura himself to a match. Though Sato requests permission to execute Ip, Miura accepts the challenge to defend the Japanese honour and crush the Chinese spirit; in secret, Sato issues death threats to Ip if he does not allow Miura to win. At the city square, Ip defeats Miura after a long and hard fight. Looking over the cheering crowd, which includes his wife and son, Ip is shot in the shoulder by Sato. As the crowd overwhelms the Japanese soldiers, Li kills Sato with his own gun. Ip is then taken away by Chow amid the chaos and manages to escape with his family to Hong Kong. A closing montage and captions reveal that Ip spent the rest of his life working to spread the teachings of Wing Chun, establishing a school and training several students, including Bruce Lee.

Plot from Ip Man (film)CC BY-SA 4.0