What Ip Man misses in plot it makes plenty in its martial arts scenes. The film has two very distinguished parts – the first covering the life of Ip Man in the 1930’s at Southern China’s Foshan, and the second, covering the period under the Japanese occupation during WWII (Second Sino-Japanese War). While the first part is light and fun, the second part is soaked in Chinese nationalism. This is not to say that it’s not interesting, well acted and true to the suffering of the Chinese people under the torturous Japanese occupation, but it is to say that its full of stereotypes and lacks the sense of good storytelling. I will not go into the plot or the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun and the first person to teach the art openly – also legendary Bruce Lee’s future teacher, but I will mention that this biopic has taken plenty of liberties when it comes to the real life of Ip Man. Still, as a martial arts fan and practitioner, I wholeheartedly recommend it to fellow fans.  Donnie Yen who portrays Ip Man does a terrific job, as well as the other members of the cast. The other point to note is the level of detail the director took in order to recreate the period and the atmosphere. Quite superb. Theme music is also quite catchy. This film, unfortunately, was not released to theaters in the West but is available on DVD.