Actor Miu Tse has come a long away since working under the stewardships of mega producer Wong Jing and action star Jet Li for early 90s action classics New Legend Of Shaolin (1994) and My Father Is A Hero (1995), among others. There was a small hiatus period afterward before getting back into film and television in the early 2000s and onward, appearing in Empire Of Assassins (2011) and Yuen Woo-Ping’s The Thousand Faces Of Dunjia (2017) to name a few, and as of late, Tse is now one of several actors in more than a decade to stake his claim on a new fictionalized incarnation of Wing Chun Grandmaster Ip Man, this time in directing duo Adam Li and Zhang Zhu Lin’s Ip Man: The Awakening.
While visiting Hong Kong, a young Master Ip intervenes in a kidnapping attempt, unintentionally igniting a turf war with a ruthless human trafficking ring. In retaliation, the gang kidnaps one of Ip Man’s close friends, leaving him with no choice but to challenge the group’s notoriously brutal boxing champion head-on.
The film was previously released in the mainland and is now set to launch on Well Go USA’s exclusive Asian film streamer, Hi-YAH!, which has been home to contemporary niche titles like Spiritwalker, Flash Point, Silat Warriors and Hydra, as well as director Liu Chun’s own take on Fist Of Legend (2019) and Guo Yu Long’s Unbending Mr. Fang (2021) among others. Slowly-but-surely though the platform has been bolstering a bit more with a few Hong Kong action classics like Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon (1990), and Righting Wrongs (1986) with another on the way with Teddy Robin’s Shanghai Shanghai (1990) also in tow for the streamer.
Ip Man: The Awakening may not be a bygone classic and the jury is still out on how it performs for me as a member of its target audience, but it definitely feels like a bit of a celebrated welcome for Tse who is practically action cinema royalty at this point, and one only hopes he’ll become an even bigger star going forward if he so chooses.
Also starring are Chen Guan Ying, Zhao Yu Xuan and Hao Yan Fei. Well Go USA will release the film on Hi-YAH! from May 20, followed by Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital beginning June 21!
A previous version of this article has been supplied with updates on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital releases from the distributor.