Ip Man's conflicts with Hung and his followers continue, but of course, the biggest enemies are the evil foreigners who look down upon the Chinese people and are willing to spit and scream in order to let EVERYONE know. This storyline is also nothing new (see Fearless or True Legend for other takes), but Wilson Yip and company do away with any subtlety, creating what could be the most obnoxious, racist and hilarious white people in a Hong Kong film ever. The police superintendent (Charlie Mayer) is so slimy that he probably bleeds oil, but the cake-taker is Darren Shahlavi as Mr. Twister, the Brits' number one boxer and also the loudest man on the planet. Mr. Twister hates Chinese and loves to scream about it. Not one line the character utters is anything less than a shout, and Shahlavi's bursting veins are so visible during his screaming binges that they should have received their own screen credit.
If you can set aside serious objections to producers foisting xenophobic claptrap on the Chinese audience, it sounds like we might have a new possibility for the trash cinema canon.
Speaking of alternate cinema (this is about "bad" cinema, not trash cinema, and I swear there's a difference): enjoy Sam Adams on the unironic cult of Troll 2. He also has some Troll 2 clips on his blog. I never thought to watch Troll 2--I knew it was bad, but thought it was bad bad, not strange and wonderful bad. Turns out it's the latter! So I'm going to have to check it out.
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