May 25, 2010

IP MAN 2

Temenku udah ber-kali2 ngajak aku nonton film ini ... tapi aku gak mau terus ... habis aku gak nonton yang sebelumnya ... takutnya gak ngerti gitu ... sementara temenku nonton yang sebelumnya ...

Sampe pas kita mau pergi nonton ... dan gak ada pilihan film lagi ... akhirnya IP MAN 2 inilah yang jadi pilihannya ...

Ternyata filmnya lumayan bagus ... ada pembelajaran yang bisa kita dapat dari film ini ... pertama, orang tuh gak selamanya selalu jadi nomer 1 ... kedua, orang boleh beda status sosial tapi untuk harga diri semua orang itu sama ... maksudnya, orang yang ber-status sosial lebih tinggi tidak boleh meremehkan orang yang ber-status sosial lebih rendah ...

Continuing from where the first film left off, Wing Chun master Ip Man and his family move to Hong Kong in the early 1950s after their escape from the Japanese. There, he desires to open a school to propagate his art, as well as make his living, but he has difficulty attracting students due to his lack of reputation in the city. One day, a young man named Wong Leung (Huang Xiaoming) appears and promptly challenges Ip to a fight to test him, but is easily defeated in a brief bout. Leung leaves humiliated, only to return with some friends to gang up on him. Ip beats them as well. Stunned and impressed by his skills, Leung and his friends become his first students, bringing more disciples to help the school thrive. Ip later encounters his old friend Chow Ching-chuen (Simon Yam), and his son Kong-yiu while out shopping; Chow had apparently suffered a gunshot wound to the head from the Japanese. As a result, he suffered brain damage that has affected his memories, leaving the pair of them destitute. Ip is saddened by his friend's fate and offers to help Kong-yiu take care of his father, providing him with a job at a newspaper agency run by a friend.

Meanwhile, Leung is caught pasting leaflets promoting Ip's school by some
Hung Ga students. One of them challenges Leung to a fight and loses, but his friends take Leung hostage in revenge, hoping to extort money from his master. Ip receives word of the kidnapping and goes to the local wet market as appointed, but the meeting ends in a confrontation with a growing mob of Hung Ga students. Ip and Leung fight their way outside to meet Jin Shanzhao (Fan Siu-Wong) — the martial artist and former bandit in the first film — who comes to their rescue with his own gang. Renowned Hung Ga master, Hung Chun-nam (Sammo Hung), arrives to break up the fight. Ip introduces himself, and Hung informs him that to set up his own school, he must be subjected to a ceremony where he must be challenged by the city's Kung Fu masters. Ip, Leung and Jin are subsequently arrested by Fatso (Kent Cheng) for disturbing the peace, but they each manage to make bail and are released. Hung is then shown to be acting as a collector for the other masters and himself as part of a protection racket, headed by Superintendent Wallace, a corrupt officer in the Hong Kong police.

Ip attends the ceremony and defeats his first challengers, and then strikes a
draw with the last challenger, Hung. Ip is allowed to keep running his school on the condition that he pay the monthly protection fees, but he declines. Hung thus has his students loiter in front of the Wing Chun school and harass anyone interested, causing a street brawl between them and Ip's disciples. Ip is thus forced to close up and move the school nearer to home. He soon confronts Hung for his bullying and their respective views on integrity, then nearly engage in another brawl before being interrupted by Hung's family. Ip respectfully leaves, and the next day, Hung invites him to a British boxing match he had helped to set up.

The boxing competition begins with the various martial art schools demonstrating their skills. However, the event's star boxer, Taylor "The Twister" Milos (
Darren Shahlavi), looks down on the display and openly insults and attacks the students, causing chaos as the masters try to restore order. Hung accepts Twister's challenge to a fight so that he can defend his culture's honour. While Hung's skills are evident and possibly superior to The Twister's, he soon begins to weaken from asthma, causing him to sustain severe injuries. Although Ip tries to persuade Hung to stop the fight, the latter states it is essential to defend the honor of Chinese culture, referring to The Twister's earlier disrespect and insults. The Twister takes advantage of Hung's weakened state and brutally kills him. News of Hung's murder rapidly spreads throughout the enraged Chinese populace, and Wallace acts quickly to suppress further spread of the news, arresting the editor of the local newspaper, Leung Kan, and attempting to break his hands with a baton to warn him against further publication. The scandal resulting from the fight also prompts British authorities to hold a press conference. Hung's death was ruled an accident, and it is announced that another match will be held in which Twister will accept any challenge from the Chinese out of goodwill. Twister takes the opportunity to mock Chinese traditions and declares his belief that the Chinese are too weak to defeat or even challenge him. Ip arrives and accepts the challenge.

Wing-sing goes into
labor while Ip trains for the fight. Shortly after, Ip begins his fight with Twister. Initially, Ip has trouble effectively injuring Twister and takes several heavy blows. Finding his rhythm, he is able to briefly incapacitate Twister. Angry, Twister ambushes Ip with a heavy blow to the face after the bell announcing the end of a round is rung. To add insult to injury, the judging panel, heavily dominated by Western judges, rules to ban kicks, limiting Ip's fighting style. Without time to adjust, Ip takes several more hard blows and is knocked down again. Encouraged by Hung's words and courage in his dying moments, Ip gets up again, and in a flurry of his own blows (mixed in with several of Hung's techniques), he knocks out his opponent but shows mercy and restraint (contrary to Twister's earlier actions in killing Hung). As the Chinese audience cheers, Wallace is arrested by his superiors for his corrupt behavior, thanks to information provided by Fatso. Ip then gives a speech to the audience, stating that the fight was not to prove one fighting style's superiority over another, and that despite the differences in social classes, there should be no differences in an individual's integrity, wishing for everyone to respect one another. Ip goes home and reunites with his family, with Wing-sing having successfully given birth to their second child. A final scene shows Kong-yiu introducing a young boy to Ip, who wishes to study Wing Chun: Bruce Lee. Ip smiles and tells the boy to come back when he is older.

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