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YMMV / Ip Man 2

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  • Catharsis Factor: Watching Twister, the unapologetically Asian-hating white-supremacist boxer and murderer of Master Hung Lei-Nan, being demolished into the garbage that he is by Ip Man, a Chinese Warrior half his size with Asian Martial Arts is as inspiring as it is satisfying.
  • Even Better Sequel: Ip Man 2 is considered by many as a step forward from Ip Man, as it shows much more fleshed out antagonists and more credible challenges to Donnie Yen's character without losing the plot. Even its inevitable Anvilicious Chinese nationalism, a typical complaint from the first, turns out more optimist and open than the first iteration. While it was slighty less succesful economically, the film got a better critical reception as the first one (improving the first's 84% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 92%). Donnie Yen himself considered it better as well.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Twister beats Master Hung to death in what is meant to be a exhibition match. Bad as that is, it's not this trope. This trope comes into play in the press conference afterwards. Rather than showing ANY remorse at the press conference held for his innocence, he gleefully mouths off about how he is going to murder every Chinese warrior in Hong Kong during the next match held to clear his name.
  • Narm:
    • Jin's first appearance in the second film can best be summed up as "Jin charges onto the scene, then starts randomly throwing rather sloppy looking kung fu moves at a mob of bad guys standing at least two meters away from him". It comes across as silly more than it does anything else.
    • Darren Shahlavi does make an impressive antagonist, especially for his chiseled built and all the 50 lbs he has on Donnie Yen, but people with a passing knowledge of boxing (that is, this genre's own target audience) might find it very hard to buy Twister as a boxing champion when his offensive is solely composed of bar brawl-style alternate hooks.
    • While the choreography and acting for the fight between Ip and Twister is neat, basically making it a visual poem on Force and Finesse, it is hard not to find it goofy how Ip's chained hand strikes feel like light taps against the mountain of muscle that is Twister, especially compared to Twister's own haymakers, making it hard to believe that Ip is actually achieving anything with his hands until he starts using them for dirty attacks in the last round. This is also Truth in Television, as wing chun is often criticized for overspecializing in intrincate arm punches with little KO power instead of more practical techniques.
  • Spiritual Licensee: The film is more or less like a Foreign Remake of Rocky IV.
  • Tear Jerker: Twister brutally beating Master Hung to death.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Master Hung. He's introduced as being a jerkass to Ip Man, and while he Took a Level in Kindness, his fight to the death leads many viewers losing sympathy for him, as he's knowingly allowing himself to be killed just to make a statement, leaving his children fatherless.


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