The Ip Man series, 4 of the century’s best action movies, are leaving Netflix soon

polygon.com:

I love martial arts cinema. It’s been a big part of my beat since I joined the Polygon team. But that hasn’t always been true.

The action movies I grew up with were more of the James Bond variety — a lot of spy movies, some superhero fare, with the occasional Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon snuck in. About 10 years ago, I happened to come across a flurry of excellent modern martial arts movies all in the course of a week. Undisputed 2: Last Man Standing, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, and Blood and Bone opened my eyes to what was possible in the direct-to-video space. But it was Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen’s Ip Man series that cemented my interest in the genre and pushed me to discover more.

Loosely based on the life of famous Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man, the movies reunite Yip and Yen after the pair delivered consecutive bangers with SPL and Flash Point. The Ip Man movies combine terrific fight choreography with moving period-piece storytelling, all revolving around the unique talents of their leading man, a movie star operating at the absolute height of his powers.

Donnie Yen is among the most charismatic and talented movie stars working today. Western audiences may be most familiar with him from his recent roles in Rogue One: A Star Wars Storyand John Wick: Chapter 4, or from Shanghai Knights and Blade II. (He also served as Blade II’s action choreographer). But he has a long, long history of using his star power to propel excellent Hong Kong action movies, and the Ip Man series is only one of the latest examples.

Yen’s incredible martial arts skill combined with the series’ choreography is the showiest part of the movies. But what elevates them to genuinely great filmmaking is the way they lean on his deep