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who knew Bruce Lee briefly in the early 1970s (Lee, famously, was Ip Man's student), is anything but a shy, withdrawn retiree.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