I have studied wing chun for a couple years, I started a little before the first movie came out. I loved the first movie, though it was a bit flashy and dolled up for film. It was still mostly realistic. Aside from the fact that the movie replaces the threat of Communist take over with Japanese take-over, it really was a great kung-fu movie. I've watched it several times since. But Ip Man 2 was for the most part a comic book fantasy with no realism or character to it, including comic book villains to boot. Most of the fights including that crazy knife fight were just so unrealistic. I did like the table fight between the different schools and Yip Mann, minus the flying wire parts, but the rest of the fights were too ridiculous. When the boxer is wailing on these guys that aren't wearing gloves and can kick, that is just so ridiculous. If you can kick and grab and the other guy can't, it doesn't matter how strong he is, the fight is over. Try wearing gloves and actually grabbing and throwing your opponent, you will find that it's impossible, but 'twister' managed to do it with ease. I would fight Mike Tyson if I could kick and didn't have to wear gloves, that would make the fight 10x easier. You see it in UFC all the time, constant kicks to the legs will bring down the toughest opponent, and there's no way a boxer could block that. The fight directors didn't think about that apparently, they would rather have a kung-fu fighter keep punching a boxers gloves for 30 minutes, than to actually have him use skillful fighting. I'm glad Yen stopped before the third, I don't want to know how far they would go with that story. It might look more like Crouching Tiger than Ip Man.
