But the primary value of the festival, which takes place at Lincoln Center, the Japan Society and Asia Society, lies in the opportunity to see a generous sampling of current and recent hits from the vital film cultures of countries like China, Japan and South Korea. And the best of this year’s programs are a strong group, especially among the Chinese-language selections, where the familiar, heavy-handed mix of sentimentality and nationalism seems in abeyance.

One of the best offerings has unlikely roots: “Ip Man: The Final Fight” is the fifth Chinese-language feature released since 2008 based on the life of the martial arts master Ip Man (often spelled Yip Man), whose students included Bruce Lee. The most prominent of those films, directed by Wilson Yip and starring Donnie Yen, have been solidly made but unremarkable for anything besides their fight choreography and anti-Japanese jingoism.

“Final Fight,” a Hong Kong production directed by Herman Yau, is different. Covering Ip Man’s autumn years in the 1950s and ’60s in that region, where he tries to stay out of the spotlight while teaching wing chun kung fu to an assortment of proletarian types — union steward, prison guard, factory worker — it has a melancholy, jazzy vibe appropriate to the period. Loving re-creations of dim sum parlors and dance halls are as important to the feel of the film as the spectacular fights between rival martial arts schools, and the story moves with the rhythms of an old Hollywood musical.

The film’s biggest advantage, though, is the casting of the longtime Hong Kong performer Anthony Wong as Ip Man: while he’s not the martial arts star that Mr. Yen is, he’s a far better and more soulful actor. “Final Fight” spells out familiar themes about corruption (represented, in part, by a venal British police superintendent) and cultural heritage, but it does so relatively lightly. It’s more interested in dispensing pleasure than in teaching lessons.

Utterly different but equally enjoyable is the China-Hong Kong co-production “Drug War,” directed by the action and crime master Johnnie To. Set in and around the northern port city of Tianjin, and largely taking place on brutally ugly expressways and country highways, it’s a grim, complex, meticulously designed story about drug dealers and police officers from different jurisdictions who pursue them up and down the country.