This third instalment in the quasi-biographical series ruffled feathers during pre-production when it was announced that a CGI simulacrum would be employed to bring Bruce Lee back from the dead to play himself. Lee’s estate protested, and the plan was dropped, the incidental role being filled instead by Danny Chan. Sadly, the necessary technology does not exist to breathe life into Mike Tyson’s performance as lumbering thug Frank, who speaks two languages but is coherent in neither. Donnie Yen returns as Ip Man, with whom we pick up in Hong Kong, 1959.
There’s a West Side Story liveliness to some early scenes, after which the patchy story plods messily towards a projected showdown with Cheung Tin-chi (played by Zhang Jin, who had an eye-catching role in Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster), who challenges Ip to prove which of them is the true master of Wing Chun. Typically nippy fight choreography by Yuen Woo-ping adds spice, while a punch-up which begins in a lift proves a slick highlight to an otherwise uneven film.
