Donnie Yen returns in this rushed sequel to the far superior Yip Man. While the first film offered startling and far more brutal martial arts action than previous entries, there is nothing new or original in the second installment. The film is basically two halves of different stories mashed together. Yip Man's struggle to continue teaching Wing Chun while resisting the local martial arts schools as they attempt to extort money from him. Sammo Hung (the lead antagonist in the first half) shows some decidedly corrupt and criminal behavior but ends the film as a hallowed saint. Midway the story falls back on the previous films theme - Chinese Nationalism. The evil Japanese are now replaced by colonialist British administering post-war Hong Kong. The white characters are all portrayed as cartoon villains, right down to the dastardly laughs and blatant derision for the Chinese. The film fails to mention that the real Yip Man moved to British Hong Kong to avoid oppression and death from his fellow mainland Chinese. Yip Man and Master Hong suddenly bury their feud in the face of British Boxer "Twister" who in a page ripped from Rocky 4 later kills Master Hong in the ring after insulting Chinese martial arts. Towards the end there arises a hatred of westerners that was not present or even indicated for most of the film. Returning characters are little used such as Simon Yam, and Lynn Hung is just there to nag Yip about money. New younger characters look as if they've just stepped out a boy band video. The fights throughout are competent but nothing new and use more wire work than before, with men in their 50s/60s doing acrobatics while fighting. Luckily talk of a 3rd film is now looking unlikely.
