Ip Man 4: The Finale (2019) BluRay 480p 720p & 1080p

What may strike some as a bit funny about Ip Man 4: The Finale is how several other Ip Man films have dealt with the latter years of the hero’s life, at least in passing, and yet not one of them to my recall (and I may have frankly shut something out at this point) gets into Ip’s supposed trip to San Francisco in the mid- sixties, which leads to a host of subplots involving (at least tangentially) Bruce Lee and (more centrally) the Marines. I did some cursory Googling in preparation for writing this review, and I certainly didn’t come across any authoritative information stating any piece of this setup might have actually occurred, but I did come across a salient bit of “information” in one article, which had a kind of funny quote that many of the Ip Man films deal with things that “might have happened”

Perhaps even a bit more oddly, at least for American audiences, is that one of this film’s putative “villains” is a martinet Gunnery Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps named Barton Geddes (Scott Adkins), who is averse to adding Chinese martial arts to the training mix, though kind of hilariously he doesn’t mind other Asian efforts like karate. This character might have been a cool hero in another enterprise with a little toning down, since he’s attempting to whip his troops into shape and get them ready in case they need to fight the enemy in hand to hand combat. As it is, this seems designed to set up a kind of analog between various fighting styles (since you just know Geddes and Ip are going to end up skirmishing) that may be at least somewhat reminiscent of the showdown between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon.

That element may be passingly interesting if perhaps fanciful, but Ip Man 4: The Finale arguably tries to stuff just a few too many subplots into the mix. Ip is not in the best of health (to say the least), his son is a problem (part of the plot dynamics revolves around Ip looking for a San Francisco school for his boy), there are nefarious anti-Chinese efforts by immigration officials, and a whole minor sidebar featuring Bruce Lee. Unless some expert comes along to disabuse me of any notions I have about the film’s basis in fact, I’ll simply say Ip Man 4: The Finale often strains credulity, but also offers some fun set pieces and does end (minor spoiler alert) with Ip’s death (which is not the first time this particular event has been depicted in an Ip Man film, for those not keeping track). That might suggest that any sequel is going to be one of those Asian fantasy films featuring a spirit fighting demons.