Rating: 2.5

At a swift 80 minutes ‘Ip Man: Kung Fu Master’ fairly throttles along trying to cover as much early Ip Man history as possible as well as cramming in as many fight scenes as it can.

Entertaining for the most part and certainly packed with fight action, the film unfortunately suffers from muddled execution of its own brilliantly bananas concept.

Having emerged from the debacle that was ‘Kung-Fu Cyborg’, Jeff Lau returns to his beloved sub-genre of the nonsensical and it’s certainly an improvement on his previous effort.

Even as an outsider looking in, this reviewer has to admit that the occasional moments of entertainment sprouted forth from ‘Just Call Me Nobody’.

By the halfway mark of ‘Justice, My Foot’, most of the interest has disintegrated and the viewer ends up sitting their hoping for something special to happen.

‘Kabamaru the Ninja Boy’ is the typical ‘fish-out-of-water’ comedy but lacks the necessary qualities to succeed beyond its premise.

Certainly tries to recapture some of the magic of the genre defining original but unfortunately ends up a somewhat shallow effort.

‘Kidnap In Rome’ is far too preoccupied with the activities of the bumbling Italian trio who ‘aid’ Bruce Leung.

The original ‘Kill ‘Em All’ was no great shakes, and this belated sequel only slightly improves on the first film thanks to some nice location work and a modicum of half decent action.

Almost non-existent scripting and farcical characters that fail to provide the film with the necessary substance.

In the end, ‘Kung Fu From Beyond The Grave’ is decent entertainment – mainly due to the fights – but lacks the campy charm needed to make it a strong recommendation.

Interest is created in ‘Lady Cop & Papa Crook’ by its style and verve, yet the story and characters are successful in doing the opposite.