‘Ip Man 3′ Teaser: It’s Mike Tyson vs. Donnie Yen

Here’s the first Ip Man 3 teaser, complete with some footage of Mike Tyson as the antagonist of the film. (He’s not playing himself, by the way.) Donnie Yen returns as Ip Man, most famous for teaching Bruce Lee, though that point in his life is only one of many achievements.

Bruce Lee, by the way, has been said to be appearing in this film through the demonic magic of CG, despite attempts from the Lee estate to contest that plan. We’ll see how that goes; fortunately there’s no CG Lee in this footage.

It’s too bad that most of the footage in this trailer comes from the first two movies. But this is a teaser, after all, and bringing Mike Tyson into it definitely manages to get my interest about this sequel. The idea of pitting Tyson against Yen is totally nuts — no matter which fighter you favor it’s a crazy stunt. And Tyson really isn’t an actor, or a practiced physical film performer in the way Yen is. So I’m very curious to see how this all works out.


(For those who don’t know the backstory, Tyson’s character is reportedly based on an American land developer that Ip Man did fight, so the idea of having a brawler like Tyson in the movie doesn’t come out of nowhere.)

At least there’s some good-looking fight footage in here that doesn’t involve Tyson, too, so even if that Tyson-Yen showdown turns out to be little more than a novelty act, there’s probably more in the movie to make it worthwhile.

Trailer via Pegasus Motion Pictures. Ip Man 3 opens, as the teaser says, on Christmas this year. But that’s in China and Hong Kong only, with Singapore following close behind. We’ll have to wait longer for it to arrive in the United States.

There’s also this video, which is Donnie Yen’s version of a “please don’t talk or text” promo that you’d typically see at the Alamo Drafthouse.

Posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2015 by Russ Fischer