Herman Yau's The Legend is Born: Ip Man

[Saboi Osmosis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV6eEqfsVWQ

Looks like Ip Chun is playing Leung Bik

[Xiao3 Meng4]

Did I see Jackie Chan at 2:09, or am I imagining things??

[SAAMAG]

Looks promising. Sammo definitely there...didn't see any Jackie. The main guys looks a lot like Donnie Yen.

[CFT]

The main guys looks a lot like Donnie Yen.

Well it was DY playing Yip Man in the 1st film. I think he was set to reprise his role.

[SAAMAG]

Well it was DY playing Yip Man in the 1st film. I think he was set to reprise his role.

But that guy looks too young to actually be DY. At first I was like alright its Sammo and Donnie but then as I watched it further the guy looked the same but different...and younger.

So I don't think its Donnie actually....

[CFT]

But that guy looks too young to actually be DY. At first I was like alright its Sammo and Donnie but then as I watched it further the guy looked the same but different...and younger.

So I don't think its Donnie actually....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386932/fullcredits#cast

I saw Yuen Biao and Louis Fan Siu-Wong from the 1st film. But you're right that is not Donnie Yen.

[kfson]

Looks very good!

[Saboi Osmosis]

Well it was DY playing Yip Man in the 1st film. I think he was set to reprise his role.

DY will be in IP MAN 2.

i think this one 'Legend is born' is the prequel

[chusauli]

This story seems to be of the young Yip Man learning in Foshan and then learning from Leung Bik...

[CFT]

DY will be in IP MAN 2.

i think this one 'Legend is born' is the prequel

No wonder! I was expecting this to be the sequel.

[GeneChing]

It'll be tough to take the Ip Man role away from Donnie, but maybe he can in Ip Man 3.

Dennis To: The new Bruce Lee?
Wed, Jul 07, 2010
By Fiona Ho

Dennis To Yu-Hang probably has his close physical resemblance to Donnie Yen to thank, for winning the titular role in The Legend is Born - Ip Man.

After all, it was Donnie's portrayal of the late Wing Chun master that has won audiences from around the world.

But surely there is more to the 29-year-old than just his comely physique.

For one, he is the reigning World Kung Fu Champion.

He is also an expert in numerous kung fu styles, including Wing Chun, which he studied for eight years. Moreover, he is the "grand-student" of Ip Chun, Ip Man's real-life eldest son.

With all his martial arts credentials, it definitely looks like Dennis has what it takes to play Ip Man.

But the rising star admits that he felt a lot of pressure playing the martial arts master.

"I was worried about my acting," he said.

"Ip Man was my 'great-grandmaster'. I really wanted to do justice to his character and to all Wing Chun disciples too."

While some critics have called his acting 'wooden' and 'emotionless', Dennis insists that he did what the director (Checkley Sin) wanted - adding that the real Ip Man was said to be the strong, silent type.

However, Dennis thinks that his duel with Ip Chun (who plays Leung Bik) in the film really allowed him to shine.

"Grandmaster was fun to work with. He has a great sense of humour," said Dennis of the 86-year-old master.

The fresh-faced actor himself embodies a whole new generation of Kung Fu masters.

"I'm very honoured to be recognized alongside the great Kung Fu masters, but I still feel very inexperienced in the entertainment industry," he said.

For Dennis, the whole acting experience has been tough - "the ending scene has been changed five times! But the end-result makes everything worth it."

"I hope to spread Chinese Kung Fu around the world (through his films). In a way, I do feel like I'm representing the Chinese, just like Bruce Lee did," he said.

"Someone who isn't Chinese can practice Kung Fu and even be good at it, but they can never be as authentic. Kung Fu is one of the most precious things in the Chinese culture."

[GeneChing]

The race for the first review here is on. SPJ? doug?

Rose of steel

MODEL-TURNED-ACTRESS Rose Chan (below) tackles her first major movie role as Ip Man’s fellow Wing Chun practitioner who has a crush on him.

The petite 17-year-old literally packs quite a punch on her own as Chan has been *studying Wing Chun for two years and is a fellow practitioner of the martial art like lead actor Dennis To.

“Part of the movie’s aim is to promote the art and tell people that Wing Chun is actually suitable for women as well,” she says during a recent promotional tour to Malaysia with To.

Chan was only 15 when she met Wing Chun master Checkley Sin who *encouraged her to take up the art.

She says: “I was never into exercise all my life. I started from zero and then, this opportunity came along.

“It was scary initially to be working with so many big names. Dennis was the only one I knew but they were all very kind and understanding. We were like a family because we got together a month before shooting to prepare ourselves, and *practised from sunrise to *sunset.”

The singer reveals she will be focusing on acting, *perhaps taking up more *action roles, but hopes to have the chance to try other genres as well.

[GeneChing]

Thu, Jun 24, 2010
Winging it with Ip Chun
By Tay Yek Keak

THE son of Ip Man has never been in a real fight.

Gongfu master Ip Man - whose story propelled the legendary martial art of wing chun to it status of the Chinese martial art du jour (and therefore turning Ip Man into the new Chinese action hero) - and his art didn't spur his eldest son, Ip Chun, into going mano-a-mano with anyone else, even when he was a hot-headed teen.

Instead, he was a pacifist by default. "When I was a kid, no one dared to fight me. I was Ip Man's son," he said in Cantonese with a laugh.

The sprightly, chatty 86- year-old was here recently to promote the prequel Ip Man: The Legend Is Born, now out in cinemas.

In the movie, Hong Kong world gongfu champion Dennis To plays Ip Man as a young man. Ip Man is known to audiences, thanks to Donnie Yen, who played the master in two films, Ip Man (2008) and Ip Man 2 (2010).

In The Legend Is Born, Ip Chun plays Leung Pik, one of Ip Man's principal masters, who teaches the young dude a different form of wing chun.

In the prequel, the senior citizen defeats the lad in a Chinese medicine shop with moves that look like they'd give anyone a hernia.

The irony of playing his father's shifu (master) is not lost on Ip Chun, who is a wing chun master in Hong Kong.

However, he views it as a generational connection.

"The producer (of the movie), Checkley Sin, is my disciple. Dennis is his disciple. So, there are three generations of wing chun practitioners in the movie," he said with a laugh.

The octogenarian, who knew Bruce Lee briefly in the early 1970s (Lee, famously, was Ip Man's student), is anything but a shy, withdrawn retiree.

Seizing the opportunity to talk, he upstaged his younger co-stars - To, as well as Hong Kong actors Fan Siu Wong and Rose Chan - when he hogged the microphone during his recent press conference here.

"This is the first and last time I'm acting in a film," he announced heartily.

"Learning martial arts is not that difficult, but acting is tougher because you have to redo your scenes so many times," he said with a mock sigh.

However, he understands that films are fantasy-making endeavours, which are far from the purity of his disciplined craft.

There are inaccuracies in the first two Ip Man movies, where Ip Chun is portrayed as a young boy - to the best of his recollection, Ip Chun was not with his father at the time.

But he doesn't mind. After all, he helped Donnie Yen with little details when the actor turned to him, asking to chat with him about his father.

Asked what his father was like, he said: "My father was a very humorous person. He influenced his children's upbringing gradually through his actions. I still miss him."

Ip Man - who started teaching Ip Chun wing chun when he was seven - died in 1972 of throat cancer. But he's getting a second life on celluloid, with Wong Kar Wai biopic The Grand Master in the works.

Ip Chun is encouraged by this enthusiasm and encourages it in turn.

"There might be other Ip Mans because the wave is not over yet," he said.

Just what we need...more Ip Mans.

[vatesi]

Was quite entertaining, especially if you compare it to the mess Ip Man 2 was. Was very light hearted for the most part, except the climax. Once again, the moral is that only evil **** comes out of Japan >_>

There was also quite a good, if not futile message from Ip Chun to stop the wing chun lineage bickering bull****.

[GeneChing]

So vatesi, is this the Batman Begins for Ip Man?

Fighting to break free
> Relative newcomer Dennis To strives to step out from under the shadow cast by award-winning Donnie Yen in his Ip Man role
Sharon Wong

IT’S HARD to live in the shadow of someone famous, and doubly hard to portray a well-known personality who has been popularised by someone famous.

When Dennis To was offered the role of Ip Man in the movie The Legend is Born: Ip Man, he had to contend with the fact that award-winning actor Donnie Yen had brought the legendary Wing Chun master to life in Ip Man and its sequel.

Naturally, appearing in this prequel is bound to bring about much comparison – especially since To actually looks a little like Yen. And seeing that To is a relative newcomer to the scene, those comparisons could be brutal.

However, To can be comforted by the fact that he is actually a Wing Chun practitioner and thus has no problems doing the stunts. But in portraying his great grandmaster, To has to face some pressure – not so much from Yen’s fans as from his fellow Wing Chun practitioners.

“If my portrayal is not good, I would definitely be criticised by my fellow practitioners,” he says during a recent promotional tour to Malaysia.

Fortunately for To, his grandmaster Ip Chun (Ip Man’s son, who also has a role in the movie) gave him 90 out of 100 for his performance and director Herman Yau also praised him for a job well done.

To gives himself 70 marks as he is still new and there is room for improvement. “I’m satisfied with the action part. It’s the acting that needs work.”

And the young actor admits that looking a little like Yen does help to make him more recognisable.

“But one can’t depend on that alone to make it. You have to develop your own style,” he adds.

Moreover, he and Yen played Ip Man at different times of the grandmaster’s life. “The whole cast for The Legend is Born is younger and not like Yen’s more matured character who is already a master.”

To actually had a small role in Ip Man 2 – as one of Sammo Hung’s disciples who bullies Huang Xiao Ming’s character at the fish market. “I look totally different in that scene,” he says.

In The Legend is Born, To admits he relishes the scene where he has a showdown with the character played by his grandmaster.

“Grandmaster Ip Chun was quite amusing in that scene and drew me into the moment easily,” he recalls.

“Our rapport was great and of course, the action part was not a problem. However, we did seven to eight takes to choose the best as the director wanted perfection.

“It was naturally tiring for the Grandmaster as he is over 80 years old but he was just great.”

Ip Chun earned himself the best supporting actor award at the recent Shanghai Film Festival for his effort.

To started practising martial arts at the age of six but took up Wing Chun only eight years ago when he was 22.

Since then, he has won many accolades including the title of world champion in the 1999 World Wushu competition as well as a silver medal in the 2002 Asian Games and a gold medal in the 2005 East Asian Games in the wushu category. He was also a flame bearer in the 2008 Olympics.

It is his dream to use martial arts to give back to society – helping fellow athletes in Hongkong who do not have the same benefits or perks as those in other countries.

To is also honoured to be named one of the new generation of action actors but hopes to work in different genres in the future.

And with Sammo Hung as his mentor to teach him all about acting – both in front as well as behind the camera – To looks set to cast his own shadow in the movie scene.