However, if you are someone who knows the life of Master Ye Wen, or if you know "Wing Chun Ye Wen" for the first time, this film will give you great satisfaction. This kind of satisfaction allows me to say with confidence: "The next Golden Image Award winner, I am quite Huang Qiusheng!"
Compared with the three previous Ye Wen actor, whether it is character, Wing Chun skill or spirit The temperament, Huang Qiusheng is the most unique. As the image of the film, the first five films are fictitious like this film. However, before this film, the years when Master Ip Man passed on martial arts in Hong Kong, all left a misunderstanding to the audience, that is-- Ye Wen, who was in the Hong Kong years, was in his prime. In the second part of Donnie Yen’s version, Ye Wen not only defeated an imperialist fighter, but also had a sweet wife and a pair of sons. Although he was no longer a child of the rich, he also said It's free and easy.
However, the fact is that Ye Wen went to Hong Kong alone in 1950 and was already 57 years old. This martial artist who doesn't like to talk too much, is elegant and low-key, is a good man, and his life in Hong Kong is more spiritually happy. According to the memories of his son Ye Zhun and several surviving apprentices, although Ye Wen had a concise and humorous conversation and had a group of apprentices with him every day, he often went in a daze alone and seldom confided in anyone's concerns. In the second half of his life, because of the times, Ye Wen never saw his wife Zhang Yongcheng again. Only an unqualified "Shanghai wife" took care of him and had his third son, Ye Shaohua. And this unrecognized relationship has caused Ye Wen and a group of apprentices to experience emotional crisis. Too much unpleasantness and heaviness, coupled with the life experience of falling from the clouds to the red dust, made Ye Wen even less talkative in his later years. This silence, for martial artists in their middle and old ages, is actually a temperament that is no less profound than the true meaning of martial arts.
A generation of masters, like celebrities, are always seen as achievements and brilliance, but what enhances their achievements is more sacrifice and forbearance behind them. To a certain extent, it is the ups and downs of experience that have added to the master's martial arts cultivation and philosophy of life.
Therefore, facing the master’s personal history in this film, the texture of the "biopic" overwhelms the imagination of the "legendary film". These are definitely the credit of Huang Qiusheng. Even though he was more than two heads higher than the real Ye Wen, his mixed blood lineage also made his facial features quite different from Ye Wen. But when he was carrying two bamboo boxes and wearing a long gown, standing alone on the streets of Hong Kong, a little confused, the image of a down-and-out master with stunts, he combined the yellow version of Ye Wen and the first three versions of Ye. Ask to draw a clear line.
Huang Qiusheng in this film will make people amnesia, forgetting that he has existed in such wonderful movies as "Human Meat Barbecued Pork Bun", "Beast Criminal Police", "Young and Dangerous", "Infernal Affairs" and so on. He can subdue the mob in an instant, but it won’t make you feel violent; he talks with people, whether it’s a lover, son or other relatives, or brutal martial arts fellows or gangsters. He always speaks concisely, hits the nail on the head, and leaves a room for recollection. . He performed the integrity and magnanimity of a master of martial arts, and also captured the optimistic, mellow, and delicate charm of an old gentleman. You can feel that Huang Qiusheng, like Tony Leung, worked on the role of Ye Wen, but compared with Tony Leung’s personal characteristics, the yellow version of Ye Wen is more real, more three-dimensional, and more of a passing age.
But Huang Qiusheng's contribution cannot conceal the weakness of the film's script. Except for the wonderful Wing Chun movements, the trivial and non-focused narrative does not show the excitement of Ye Wen in his later years. After watching the movie, I agree with Huang Qiusheng's evaluation of himself: "I have played a bad movie, but I have never played a bad role."
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