Young Ip Man: Crisis Time (2020) Review

Young Ip Man | Blu-ray (Well Go USA)

Director: Liming Li
Cast: Zhao Wenhao, Mu Fengbin, Jonathan Kos-Read, Yuqing Shi, Li Hao Xuan
Running Time: 79 min.

By Paul Bramhall

It’s hard to believe that since Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen’s iconic Ip Man in 2008 we’ve had 3 sequels, a spin-off, 2 more cinematic outings with different actors, a TV series, and 4 web-movies (with 3 more different actors!). That’s without mentioning a certain Wong Kar Wai. With the exception of the Donnie Yen outings there’s zero continuation between the other entries, as 2020’s Young Ip Man: Crisis Time proves in classic fashion. This isn’t the first time for audiences to be given a glimpse into the early life of Ip Man, with Herman Yau’s The Legend is Born – Ip Man from 2010 already covering the wing chun master’s formative years (albeit in a highly fictionalised manner). Back then it was Dennis To who took the lead, the only other actor apart from Donnie Yen who’d reprise the role, returning almost 20 years later for the no longer that young Ip Man: Kung Fu Master in 2019. 

Dennis To’s 2^nd time to step into the shoes of Ip Man was one of 2 movies released in 2019 that marked the beginning of the Ip Man web movie era, productions made by companies like Youku, iQIYI, and Tencent Video, and generally made with the expectation that they’d probably be watched on a smartphone. Understandably, such productions by nature come with punchy runtimes (90 minutes would be considered epic, with 70 – 75 being the average), CGI that rarely holds up on screens larger than the average smartphone, and it’s the visually appealing kung-fu and monster flicks that have become the go-to genres.

Ip Man and Four Kings was the other entry from 2019 (that cast Michael Tong as Ip Man), with Young Ip Man: Crisis Time following in 2020, and as of the time of writing 2021’s Ip Man: The Awakening delivers the most recent dose of wing chun action (which casts Xie Miao as Ip Man).

In YIP:CT (as I’ll refer to it from here on in) its Zhao Wenhao who takes on the iconic role, an actor who’s quickly becoming a mainstay of the web movie scene with leading roles in the likes of 2021’s The Magic Lotus Lantern and 2022’s Messy Temple. Here he takes centre stage in a story which is probably best described as The Breakfast Club meets Die Hard via the NRTA. Wenhao’s slight high school student is dating fellow student Shao Xia, here making her movie debut, who also happens to be the head of the Axe Gangs daughter. Thankfully this has zero relevance to the plot save for acting as a setup for a joke involving a sandwich, with the real plot revolving around an English-speaking competition being held on the school campus. Before any English can be spoken though, the school is invaded and students taken hostage by a gang, who demand 5 bars of gold for each student’s safe return, and the police have 2 hours to deliver.

Thankfully, Wenhao avoids being caught up in the initial roundup, so spends the best part of an hour wandering around the hallways as a kind of Chinese schoolboy version of John McClane, just minus any foul language. Even if the script was kind enough to give Wenhao his own “yippee-ki-yay” moment (it isn’t), its doubtful that it’d improve his performance much, with an underwhelmingly one-dimensional take on the character of Ip Man that’s probably the dullest iteration of him onscreen so far. The plot attempts to create some additional intrigue by having the villain of the piece be Ip Man’s former chess teacher, and one of his lackeys being a less privileged friend from the past who’s gotten himself involved with the wrong crowd, however at no point does the connection feel like a meaningful one.

If anything, the villain’s former occupation mainly seems to be there to dole out a never-ending list of chess related metaphors. “Life is just like a chess game” and “Today the school will be our chess board” are just 2 of the more tolerable chess comparisons we get between the pair, as Wenhao adds precious minutes to the runtime by questioning his teacher on why he’s become a villain. Played by fellow web movie mainstay Mu Fengbin (Mutant Ghost Wargirl), who seems to be channelling a Full Contact era Anthony Wong, his anger at the system has to do with the death of a loved one. Blaming the evil gweilo police commissioner, played by Jonathan Kos-Read (Mojin: The Lost Legend), Fengbin’s masterplan is entertainingly ridiculous.

Basically, as an act of revenge he wants to kill Kos-Read’s son who’s also attending the English contest. However before doing so, he wants to ‘buy’ the sons life, which he intends to do by offering the gold he’s holding the rest of the kids to ransom for to Kos-Read. If he accepts, then Fengbin will consider them even, and everyone can get back to doing what they were doing. Cohesive plotting clearly isn’t high on the agenda, an element of web movies which is widely regarded as forgivable, since the expectation is that in most cases they won’t have the full attention of those who are watching them. Li Liming is one of countless directors who have come out of the woodwork in the mid-late 2010’s that exclusively helm web movies, with the previously mentioned Ip Man: Kung Fu Master also being a Liming joint, and most recently Desert Monster (so yes, his entire filmography consists of either kung-fu or monster flicks).

Liming seems to have struck up a partnership with action choreographer Sun Fei, who worked with him both here and on Ip Man: Kung Fu Master, in addition to handling the action on Fist of Fury and The Tangs’ Creed, both from 2021. When the fights do come they’re of a serviceable quality, if entirely derivative of Yuen Woo-Ping and Sammo Hung’s choreography on the Donnie Yen Ip Man franchise, while never coming close to matching the quality of it. We get the chain punch and classic wing chun poses, and a couple of one-on-one fights – the first against Yuqing Shi (The World Outside) armed with a chain dart, and the second against Li Hao Xuan (Harpoon) – make for a welcome break from watching Wenhao wade through corridors full of hapless opponents. 

There’s a distinct Jackie Chan influence in one sequence, which sees Wenhao fighting off attackers by balancing on a wooden beam up in the rafters, however for the most part the action remains reflective of the low budget. I did enjoy the fight against the final lackey (who doesn’t appear to be credited anywhere), which starts with the school kids going for the classic “let’s storm our kidnappers” approach, the one that seemingly every hostage situation in an action movie like this requires at some point. Amusingly he indiscriminately punches both the guys and the girls in the face with equal ferocity, the extreme violence of which somehow came across as funny rather than whatever intention it was likely going for. We also get an odd closing scene that seems to suggest Hao Xuan’s character is in fact a young Cheung Tin-chi (from Ip Man 3 and Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy), which makes about as much sense as it sounds.

However none of these points are supposed to be dwelled on. In the end YIP:CT offers up another cookie cutter kung-fu web movie without adding anything more, nor anything less, to the mix. As usual, in almost every scene there’s a generic soundtrack playing quietly in the background, as if that’s enough to maintain a sense of tension, and the 1917 setting fails to convince in just about every regard. The budget seems to range from decent (an early street scene is surprisingly populated with plenty of extras), to minimal (in one scene I could swear a cut to Ip Man’s neck had been drawn on by a red marker), with performances reflecting a similar disparity when it comes to quality level. One thing for certain is that, like many of the old-school Korean kung-fu movies from the 70’s and 80’s, filming appears to have been done in winter, with several moments where the actor’s breath is clearly visible even when they’re indoors.

If you’re willing to accept Wenhao’s one note performance, the one location setting, and the punchy 75-minute runtime, then Young Ip Man: Crisis Time may be worth a watch. Consider it a convenience store reduced to clear lettuce sandwich, to Ip Man being your 5-star steak restaurant. Expectations have been set. 

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 4/10