Dad spends a night in the man cave: The Revenge

Mom had a business trip to visit one of her clients.  While dad certainly misses his bride for the night, he would also welcome some time in the man cave.   This trip had been announced for a couple weeks and not so secretly, dad had been making a man cave short list of movies to watch.  Mom tried to help by saying that dad could watch two movies in one night.  However, in reality, the short list was actually a real list of short actors in movies he’d wanted to see.

Dad starts things out with a frozen pizza, rum and soda, two cats on the sofa, two dogs by the tele and Ip Man 2 in the DVD player.  Ip Man 2 is the sequel to Ip Man, which dad hadn’t seen either.  Apparently, the first movie left some dangling strands of Mr. Ip’s life and they just had to be revealed through a series of butt kicking wushu.

Wushu sounds like something you had at a Chinese restaurant.   It probably is and it’s loaded with sodium, surprisingly affordable and tasty.  In this case however, wushu is a style of kung fu and Ip Man was the teacher who originally instructed Bruce Lee.

Ip Man 2 stars Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung.   I had always wanted to see a Donnie Yen movie, he’s arguably the biggest Chinese movie star today and he’s got some amazing martial arts skills.  Sammo Hung is a martial arts legend, having starred in many films with Jackie Chan.

Ip Man 2 is interesting because it’s a movie with lots of martial arts action and a political story with an Ayn Rand vibe.   China is a large creditor of the U.S, they own a large portion of our debt. However, in Ip Man 2, the individuals pay with everything using cash, complain about union shake downs and aspire to own their own small business.  Ip Man 2 wasn’t an overtly political movie; I just found those aspects of the movie interesting given today’s political climate.

As it’s a sequel the movie spends a couple minutes getting the late comers (like me) introduced to Ip Man.  He’s a wushu master who is kind to strangers and starting a new martial arts school.  Gradually he gets a couple students, who end up getting to fights, where Ip Man is introduced to the payola system of martial arts schools in Hong Kong.

The Jesse Jackson character in the film, played by Sammo Hung, shakes down the local schools for a monthly fee, takes a portion and then funnels it to the local cops.  During the movie Sammo realizes that Chinese pride should be stronger then the money he makes, but the foreign devils dupe him and end up killing him.    All of this triggers a western boxing match between Ip Man and a very tall English dude.

If the plot sounds familiar that’s because it’s like Rocky 3, with the Chinese in place of the Americans and the English in place of the Russians, with a hint of Ayn Rand.   Oh, apparently that stuff about Ip Man being Bruce Lee’s teacher is correct, although the phrase “based on a true story” can certainly be stretched.

The Verdict

It was an entertaining movie, but underwhelming.  The trailer is great and I was hoping that the full movie would be as good.  The fight scenes are good, but not spectacular and for a night in the man cave I wanted more.  It does motivate this dad to see more of Donny Yen though.

Dad spends a night in the mancave is a series about what guys do when women aren’t around to judge them for what they watch on television.  It’s those really bad science fiction movies, ninja flicks or something starring Bruce Campbell that really can be enjoyable through the lens of a guy.  We may reveal plot points to the movies that are discussed, so if you’re looking for ‘reviews’ then head on over to a site that will talk about some artsy stuff that Miramax makes, cause it isn’t here.