Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend (2026) Review

“Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend” Poster

If the phrase beating a dead horse refers to still trying to milk a concept long after its expiry or relevance has diminished, then 2026’s Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend must be the web movie equivalent of nuking a dead horse. Ip Man was all the rage back in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, and amongst the craze for wing chun chain punches and rain-soaked fight scenes, a new kung-fu leading man was launched in the form of Dennis To. Despite having supporting roles in both 2008’s Ip Man and its 2010 sequel, the franchise that remains most synonymous with the Ip Man character, that didn’t stop director Herman Yau from casting To as the lead in his young Ip Man biopic Ip Man: The Legend is Born, also from 2010.

A wushu wonder kid, from 1999 through 2005 To won various medals in wushu competitions, including becoming the youngest champion in Hong Kong when, at 18, he won the gold medal in Changquan during the 1999 World Wushu Championships. His transition into the film industry was a natural one, and made at a time when new kung-fu cinema talent was in short supply, however his ascension to legitimate leading man material never came to pass. In 2014 he became embroiled in a dispute with his manager (who also happened to be his martial arts instructor), Checkley Sin Kwok-Lam, in which he claimed unpaid wages as a precursor to terminating his contract, which at the time still had a couple of years left. Almost as quickly as he filed a lawsuit though he then withdrew it, apologising for the trouble he’d caused, and amicably departed from his contractual obligations.

However by that point the damage was done, and To essentially blacklisted himself from anyone wanting to work with him in future. That was, of course, before the advent of the Chinese web movie industry. It was through the increasingly popular straight to streaming platforms that To got his 2^nd chance as a leading man, even if it was now starring in productions with titles like The Devildom Elephant Man. For director Li Liming, it was an opportunity to re-launch To as the now not-so-young Ip Man, so in 2019, he’d once more step into the shoes of the wing chun master for the appropriately titled Ip Man: Kung Fu Master. As a somewhat ironic sidenote, Liming would also go on to make his own take on the young Ip Man character, casting Zhao Wenhao in the same role that first gave To his break in 2020’s lamentable Young Ip Man: Crisis Time.

Ip Man: Kung Fu Master was an undeniably cheap affair, and completely derivative of Wilson Yip and Wong Kar-Wai’s take on the character. Watching To trudge through a laboured tale of evil Japanese oppression with copy and paste choreography from its bigger budgeted ancestors was painful viewing for many, myself included. Despite its issues, the production did enough to kick start the Ip Man web movie era, with 2019’s Ip Man and Four Kings seeing Michael Tong step into the role, while 2021’s Ip Man: The Awakening saw Xie Miao throw his hat into the ring. While the latter seemed to bring the brief cycle of Ip Man streaming to a close, for reasons we’ll never know in 2026 To returned to the role in a sequel to his 2019 outing.

Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend (as it’s been titled for its English release) is the movie precisely nobody was asking for, but presumably the makers think is what the world needs, which includes Well Go USA who are onboard as co-producers. To is now the same age that Yen was when he stepped into Ip Man’s shoes for the 2008 classic, and the shadow of Wilson Yip and Wong Kar-Wai’s takes on the character remains as long as ever, with To’s fedora hat wearing mumbly grandmaster coming across like a faded carbon copy of yesteryear.

Opening with To retreading the Ip Man 2 scenario where he has to beat a trio of local HK kung-fu masters in order to open his own school, it at least offers up the opportunity to see Zhou Xiao Fei in action, the woman grandmaster who fights Chris Collins in Ip Man 4. Let’s be honest, the fact that none of the fights unfold on a tabletop is also a positive. The duels are interrupted though when an evil western foreigner played by Steven Dasz (Pegasus 3) barges in, demanding that the school where the event is taking place be handed over to him so a western boxing academy can be established. Why not find a vacant building to avoid such inconvenience and unnecessary confrontation? Because the foreign devils enjoy bullying the Chinese, that’s why. The master of the school exclaims at one point that “You know full well I hate foreigners more than anything”, and who can blame him, nobody is as pure of heart as the Chinese.

Sure enough it turns out Dasz has a few foreign devil tricks up his sleeve, and it isn’t long before he tempts a member of the martial arts school played by Zhao Jingshuyu (The Killer of Swordsmen) to the dark side. With the offer of untold riches and prestige, Jingshuyu ultimately murders the head of the school and frames To for it (because who else wears a fedora hat quite like Ip Man wears one!?), resulting in him being imprisoned and the land left helpless from the foreigner’s grasp. Thankfully the plot of Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend has a hidden card – China’s “first Chinese female officer”! Played by Wang Wan Zhong (Jurassic Island), when she’s not espousing the virtues of what it means to be a police officer, she’s following her instincts to prove that perhaps it wasn’t Ip Man who committed murder after all.

What’s To doing during all of these shenanigans? For the most part it could be summarised as looking uninterested at being in his own movie. The energy and screen presence from 15 years ago seems to have been sapped from his performance, offering up a lifeless portrayal only capable of speaking in hushed tones, and occasionally imitating action from far superior efforts. In fact the whole production fits into that distinctive brand of sombre Chinese filmmaking, the one where everyone speaks like they’re in a library, and the palette is washed out to the point there’s hardly any color. Sometimes the style works, like in the recent Dead to Rights, but here the tone only adds to the general lethargy, the lack of any urgency and clunky pace working against the fact that we’re supposed to be watching a kung-fu movie.

Thankfully, there is some kung-fu on display, with choreography duties going to Liming’s regular collaborator Sun Fei, who handled the action on both Ip Man: Kung Fu Master and Young Ip Man: Crisis Time. Unfortunately there’s nothing of particular note on display, with some of the punches and kicks showing such a distinct lack of power it’s a crime they were left in the final product. To at least gets a handful of one on ones outside of the duels which open the movie, with an assassin played by Wu Xin Zun (Age of the Legend) offering up the best utilisation of the now patented chain punching technique. The main event though belongs to taking on the foreign devils, with Dasz having hired a western boxer played by stuntman Philip Condron (Disenchanted) to take care of business, before ripping off his own shirt to bust out some western boxing. Was it worth sticking around for? Not really.

In fact my favorite moment actually belongs to the first Chinese female officer, with Wan Zhong getting her very own Sgt. Al from Die Hard moment in the closing scenes, before a final scene at the school involves everyone clapping for so long it begins to feel like we’ve entered The Twilight Zone. Sadly such scenes weren’t enough to redeem Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend, with its omnipresent rent-a-soundtrack constantly droning on in the background of every scene, and the cheap looking cinematography making it feel like a web movie from 10 years ago rather than one which has just been released. With directors like Siyu Cheng and Qin Pengfei really elevating what can be done with the web movie format over the last few years, Liming’s latest feels decidedly low effort and throwaway, which is all the more frustrating considering the talent involved. One for Ip Man completists only.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 3/10