‘Master Z’ follows Max Zhang‘s Cheung Tin-chi who first appeared in Ip Man as a supporting character, and now helms his own side-adventure. The Ip Man Legacy is shaping up to become a full-blown cinematic universe, and I am here for it. With Michelle Yeoh, Tony Jaa, and Dave Bautista, the supporting cast is stacked, and with Yuen Woo Ping behind the camera, good action is a guarantee.
Master Z is a part of the growing Ip Man franchise. There are many Ip Man movies. There’s:
- The Legend is Born: Ip Man
- Ip Man: The Final Fight
- Ip Man and Four Kings
- The Ip Man TV show…
I love the Donnie Yen Ip Man movies, but none of these spin-offs have caught my eye, until Master Z. What’s different about this one, well first off, Ip Man isn’t in it. Cinematic universe style, we instead follow a supporting character from Ip Man 3 on his own adventure.
Master Z stars Max Zhang, who served as a great foil and adversary to Ip Man in the third film. He was an interesting enough side character that following him as the protagonist sounds like a great idea.
Max Zhang has a really cool vibe. He’s obviously a great fight performer and his hair and wardrobe compliment him well. Overall his cool-factor is pretty high. In terms of the dramatic performance though, he’s a little monotone. It suits the character decently, and it worked well in Ip Man 3 where’s he’s a side character, but when he’s our protagonist, it leaves him feeling a little flat outside of the fight scenes. Far from bad, just not all that dynamic and I was left wanting a little more emotion in the story’s big moments.
There will be some spoilers ahead, but this isn’t really the type of film that will surprise you at all, it doesn’t really try to either, so I don’t think spoilers are really a big deal.
Master Z is directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-Ping, who is already connected to the Ip Man series as he was the action director for Ip Man 3 and returned again after Master Z to do the action for Ip Man 4.
There was a noticeable change in the action when Yuen Woo-Ping took over the action directing duties from Sammo Hung who was action director for the first two Ip Man films. It wasn’t a step up or a step-down, just different, the style maybe traded a little bit of realism for a little bit more exaggeration.
With Master Z, the action style is further distanced from the initial Ip Man films and even the third film. The action feels decidedly different than the numbered Ip Man films. I could see people reacting either positively or negatively to this. I didn’t mind it as it gave the film a sense of its own identity.
When I say the action feels different, it mostly comes down to the physics at play. The Ip Man films have always had a little bit of a wuxia infusion, but this wuxia edge started out light in the first film and continued to grow with each entry. Master Z has the wirework at the highest it’s ever been by far and it certainly gives the film a different, less grounded feeling than the Donnie Yen films. I do prefer the somewhat less exaggerated style of the Donnie Yen films, but I can’t deny… some of the craziest physics-damning moments in Master Z put the biggest smiles on my face.
There are a handful of moments where the exaggerated physics took me out of the film. Some of the wire work is definitely more floaty than I would’ve liked for this type of film.
The neon sign fight is reminiscent of the awesome building-side fight from the end of ‘Chocolate’. That one felt far more real, no floaty feeling, but to be fair, tons of stuntmen got extremely hurt filming ‘Chocolate’, so it’s understandable to take some precautions to be safer and integrate this into the style of the action.
The action is good, but unfortunately the same can’t be said of the connecting bits. The drama is not very well written and it’s super schmaltzy. It’s extra disappointing because the drama bits in the Donnie Yen ‘Ip Man’ films are excellent, but this time around, any scene where fists aren’t flying definitely comes off as secondary and feels like it has had less attention paid to it.
There is a ton of bad ADR. The lips clearly don’t match the dialogue for much of what is said, and of course I always watch foreign films in their original language with subtitles, that probably doesn’t need to be said. The lip-syncing was so far off that I genuinely thought Netflix might have been lagging, but no, all the foley and everything was perfectly in sync, so I guess it’s just really bad ADR. It almost seemed like how they used to shoot old Italian movies where they just planned on dubbing over everything from the beginning and didn’t even bother recording on-set audio a lot of the time.
There are some notable supporting actors in Master Z. Dave Bautista, Michelle Yeoh, and Tony Jaa.
The white-guy actors who aren’t Dave Bautista are fucking awful, in typical martial arts film fashion. The child acting is also terrible, again, par for the course. They did a great job mixing up Bautista’s fighting style, by utilizing his massive size and making his punches feel incredibly powerful. It avoids feeling too similar to the Mike Tyson fight from Ip Man 3, which it could have easily done.
I think Bautista getting involved in the fighting is meant to be a surprise, but it’s impossible to not see coming, just by virtue of who he is. Even if you’ve never heard of him before, he’s still a white guy who’s built like a brick-shithouse, of course he’s going be the big baddie. If you turn the volume up all the way, you can actually hear his suit screaming in pain, holding those giant muscles back.
Tony Jaa doesn’t have a whole lot to do. I don’t think he says a single word in the film as a matter of fact. He only has one real fight scene and while it is good, it isn’t very long and the way it ends is in an “unfished business” kind of way that sets up for a rematch fight that you expect to come at the end of the film, but that doesn’t happen. They end up going a different way with his character that comes off as a bit of a let-down and doesn’t really have the “satisfying redemption” angle that I think they were going for.
When the fight was over it was a little anti-climactic because I was left thinking, there’s no way the fight’s really over, Tony Jaa hasn’t busted in through a window yet.
Michelle Yeoh is the best actor in the film. She gives a good performance and her big fight scene is also excellent. The quick dexterity sparring hand fight over a drink is awesome.
The fights feel different enough from one another to stay fresh throughout. There’s a mixture of both low stakes and high stakes fights. The tone appropriately shifts to be lighter and more fun for a friendly fight like Master Z sparring with his new boss where the loser has to accept money, vs the more serious tone for a fight where molotovs are flying and his child is in danger.
Interestingly this change in tonal presentation for lighter fights is not reflected as strongly in Max Zhang’s performances. He takes every encounter, no matter how inconsequential, super seriously, he’s always on the same level when he’s fighting, which you could argue is a bit of slightly wooden performing, but I think could actually be revealing for his character’s mental approach to the act of fighting, as something to always be taken seriously.
There’s a good level of destruction to the fights. Environments are well utilized and get totally wrecked by the time they’re done. The amount of broken glass approaches comical levels by the end of the film. The environmental destruction really shines once Michelle Yeoh gets hold of a sword.
There’s finally some real pushback and justice against the crooked imperialist law-force from the hands of the local police, which is quite cathartic after seeing them get away with it across three previous Ip Man films.
Overall Master Z doesn’t stack up too well beside the Donnie Yen Ip Man films, but it’s still a fun time with solid action and plenty of cool moments. It breezes right by so If you’ve already seen the numbered Ip Man films and want a little more of that universe, Master Z will do the trick.
Our review of the Donnie Yen Ip Man trilogy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDOzq…
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