Day 17: The Best Movie you Saw During the Last Year

I’ve decided to limit this category to new releases, ie films I saw in the cinema in the last year, because I watch so many DVDs it’s hard to keep track of all the films I watch each year and plus I thought it’d be nice to include a new film. I don’t go to the cinema as often as I’d like to because it costs a bomb and I’m a student, however I did get the chance to see over twenty films at Udine Far East Film Festival, and many of them were very good. My favourite of the festival was hands down Ip Man: The Final Fight. I saw a lot of great films but Ip Man was the one I got most excited about, and the one I spent a lot of time thinking about after seeing it. I’m desperate to watch it again when it comes out and it is the reason I am now a martial arts fan; I had never seen a martial arts film before this (the Jackie Chan martial arts comedies don’t really count!). I’ve began watching the other films in the Ip Man series too and I’m now a huge fan of it! Director Herman Yau is a huge inspiration not just because he’s the patron of Coventry East Asian Film Society (which I am now secretary of) but because he seems like a genuinely awesome person and he’s so talented! The highlight of the festival was actually listening to him speak at the panel the morning after his film was screened, watching the film itself is a very close second. So for a number of reasons, but mainly because it’s an effing amazing film and Anthony Wong’s performance blew me away, Ip Man: The Final Fight is hands down the best movie I saw during the last year.