4 of the century’s best action movies are leaving Netflix soon

I really like martial arts cinema. It’s been an enormous a part of my beat since I joined the Polygon group. However that hasn’t at all times been true.

The motion films I grew up with had been extra of the James Bond selection — plenty of spy films, some superhero fare, with the occasional Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon snuck in. About 10 years in the past, I occurred to return throughout a flurry of fantastic fashionable martial arts films all in the midst of every week. Undisputed 2: Final Man Standing, Common Soldier: Day of Reckoning, and Blood and Bone opened my eyes to what was doable within the direct-to-video house. But it surely was Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen’s Ip Man sequence that cemented my curiosity within the style and pushed me to find extra.

Loosely based mostly on the lifetime of well-known Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man, the films reunite Yip and Yen after the pair delivered consecutive bangers with SPL and Flash Level. The Ip Man films mix terrific battle choreography with shifting period-piece storytelling, all revolving across the distinctive abilities of their main man, a film star working on the absolute peak of his powers.

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Donnie Yen is among the many most charismatic and gifted film stars working right this moment. Western audiences could also be most acquainted with him from his current roles in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and John Wick: Chapter 4, or from Shanghai Knights and Blade II. (He additionally served as Blade II’s motion choreographer). However he has a protracted, lengthy historical past of utilizing his star energy to propel glorious Hong Kong motion films, and the Ip Man sequence is just one of many newest examples.

Yen’s unimaginable martial arts ability mixed with the sequence’ choreography is the showiest a part of the films. However what elevates them to genuinely nice filmmaking is the best way they lean on his deep soulfulness to inform a shifting story. The Ip Man films cowl tragedies on each the private and nationwide stage, confronting oppression, cruelty, and the various methods individuals damage one another — not simply by bone-crushing blows.

And Yen is as much as the duty, imbuing Ip with a deep melancholy. He begins out as somebody who fights as a result of he needs to, partaking in pleasant competitions with fellow martial arts masters, however he finally fights as a result of he has to, defending the individuals and values he holds most expensive. The flicks’ narratives and Yen’s efficiency do a terrific job of constructing out this readability of objective, making it straightforward for audiences to turn out to be deeply invested in his fights.

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There’s loads extra to love concerning the Ip Man films, however the standout factor is the franchise’s glorious motion, helmed by the 2 most influential and achieved martial arts administrators and choreographers of the trendy period. Ip Man and Ip Man 2 have motion directed by Sammo Hung (greatest recognized for his collaborations together with his childhood good friend Jackie Chan), whereas Ip Man 3 and Ip Man 4: The Finale have motion directed by Yuen Woo-ping (who helped launch Chan as a star with Drunken Grasp, and is understood internationally for his work on the Matrix films; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and Kill Invoice). Of their fingers (and Yen’s), the franchise’s battle scenes sing, matching Ip in opposition to a number of the premier display screen fighters working right this moment, together with Max Zhang, Louis Fan, Scott Adkins, and Hung himself.

The standout battle from Ip Man sees an enraged Ip demanding to battle 10 Japanese troopers (all black belts) after he sees them mistreat a fellow grasp. Till this level, Ip has been comparatively quiet and reserved, hesitant to deploy his prowess in opposition to the Japanese troops occupying his house through the Second Sino-Japanese Battle. However after he witnesses this merciless act in opposition to a good friend and colleague, a change is flipped, and Ip brutally dispatches all 10 fighters in a ruthless show of Yen’s unthinkable velocity and martial arts ability.

Not content material to only replay the hits, the later films add thrilling wrinkles to a few of their larger set-pieces. In Ip Man 2, Yen fights Sammo Held on prime of a barely balanced desk. In Ip Man 3, he fights former Tony Jaa stunt double Simon Kook in a tightly packed elevator whereas taking his spouse house from the hospital.

In every of those battle scenes, the Ip Man films use spectacular choreography in service of the bigger story and character beats. Sure, they’re spectacular moments of spectacle, however they aren’t simply that. One of the best motion films use the great thing about our bodies in movement to indicate the methods we are able to categorical anger, regret, pleasure, redemption, and a litany of different feelings not simply by phrases or facial expressions. There are few higher automobiles for that than Yen, an unbelievably expert martial artist with the performing chops to match.

Together with Undisputed 2 (out there for digital rental or buy), Common Soldier: Day of Reckoning (free with adverts on Crackle), and Blood and Bone (free with adverts on Crackle), the Ip Man films had been welcoming gateways for me into the world of martial arts cinema, and now they are often for you, too. Simply be certain to catch them earlier than they depart Netflix on July 21.

For those who’re studying this after the films have left the platform, you possibly can nonetheless watch the primary three Ip Man films on Peacock, Hello-Yah!, without cost with a library card on Hoopla or Kanopy, or without cost with adverts on Tubi, Crackle, and Pluto TV. You possibly can watch Ip Man 4: The Finale on Hello-Yah! or without cost with a library card on Hoopla and Kanopy. For extra Ip Man goodness, I extremely advocate additionally trying out Yuen Woo-ping’s Ip Man 3 spinoff Grasp Z: Ip Man Legacy (Peacock, Hello-Yah, without cost with a library card on Hoopla and Kanopy, or without cost with adverts on Crackle, Pluto, and Freevee), and Wong Kar-wai’s very completely different tackle the Ip Man story, The Grandmaster (streaming on Prime, or without cost with adverts on Tubi).

For extra Donnie Yen excellence, take a look at Within the Line of Obligation 4 (free with adverts on Tubi, Crackle, and Freevee), Wing Chun (out there for digital rental or buy on Amazon), and his earlier collaborations with Wilson Yip, SPL (free with adverts on Tubi) and Flash Level (streaming on Peacock and Hello-Yah!, without cost with a library card on Hoopla, or without cost with adverts on Tubi, Pluto, and Freevee).