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106 reviews in total |
*
The 64 Empty Hand Moves (Red Boat Opera)
Surely, this is a compromised film. Years in the making, and has one foot in the blockbuster league which means it has to address a wide audience, satisfy investors and make a healthy recoup—in the Chinese market, it did. What both these mean is that Kar Wai had to set up artificial limits to his vision, then swim to real ones, limits he cares to meet as an artist, then see how swiftly he can move back and forth.But let's not mince words here. Kar Wai is a cinematic master. And I'm sure I will remember this as one of the most interesting, most wonderful, most visual films of the year come December.
Right off the bat, you should know that if you want the clean, rousing version of Ip Man you should go to the Donnie Yen films. It's a legend anyhow, most martial arts stories are (especially the Chinese), embellished in the telling. So if you want 'truth', you're looking in the wrong place to begin with. About Ip Man, you should know that the fighting style he is supposed to have originated called wing chun, at least as taught now, takes some old Taoist notions about softness and intuited flow and creates a uselessly complicated and scholastic system of study.But the notions are powerful, and this is likely what attracted Kar Wai to a film about him.
So the artificial limits here are the kung fu movie, a type of narrative deeply embedded in the national character. So we get familiar history as the backdrop, Civil War, Japanese invasion and so forth. The film will be familiarly lush and operatic for the Chinese. It also means we get fights, we do—some marvelous ones. It means we get the heroic portrait—the good vs evil sifus, tied to contrasted history, tied to the passing of tradition. The kungfu plot revolves around preserving the secret 64 moves and avenging the old master's death, usual tropes in this type of film.
But he sets all this up in order to break it, that's what Ip Man's talk about breaking the cake represents in his standoff with the old master of the northern school, contrasted to his belief that it should be whole—metaphorically referring to a strong, unified China, the same obsession with fabricated harmony that powers both the political and martial arts narratives over there.This is what Kar Wai does, he breaks the harmonies.
Not so much in the fights: Kar Wai plays with them like a master painter fools with paint in commissioned work. He plays with speeds, textures and choreographed impacts but does not radically push the language like he did in Ashes. Ashes really was a radical break in temporal experience, wonderful stuff with many layers. Here, we experience fights cleanly, in a way that will satisfy the broad audience.
He breaks the heroic narrative: in his worldview, time does not linearly build to the 'big fight', it happens with one third of the film to go and Ip Man is not in it, what should have been a dramatic death happens offscreen, history is glimpsed off the streets, we get flashbacks and forwards, abstraction and long visual poetry. And the 64 moves are never passed on. All that fooling with structure is a way of loosening limits of genre and tradition, inherited limits to vision.But what is really worth it here, is watch him swim to meet his own limits—multilayered reflection on memory as living space for the eye.
In martial arts terms, that means soft, yielding to inner pull, to the hardness of fights, politics and quasi-mythical narrative. It means every hard narrative thrust in the name of tradition, country or lineage, becomes an anchor he uses to submerge me in visual exploration of feelings. In visitation of spaces of desire, flows. Sure, it is not as successful as previous projects, because the fancy fights and exotic settings get in the way, jarring me from a tangible experience. But it's still pretty much the same wonderful swimming, each thrust of the hand creating turbulent patterns in water.
For instance, the daughter waiting in the train station to avenge the old master is the anchor. But between that first shot and the decisive encounter, we get a wonderful current of images; cooking smoke at night, snow, refracted light through windows, children running. These are not of the story, but snow flakes of remembrance the air drags in. The cut from statues of Buddha to grainy footage of bustling Hong Kong is one of the most thunderous edits I've seen. And the entire last third of the film is purely a Kar Wai film; all about unrequited yearnings, ashes of youth in a gilded box.
So spliced inside the kung fu comic-book is a sort of Mood for Love where again we had the contrast to 'hard' fabrication in the writer of kung fu stories.It is muddled, because you can't have crispness when the whole point is a fluid recall. Tarkovsky is 'muddled'. But it's so lovely overall.The coveted moves as the excuse for the man and woman to meet attempting touch, the Taoist pushing and yielding of hands to be close.They are empty hand forms, in that there is nothing to be grasped beyond the shared flow. It is all about cultivating sensitivity, listening, placement in space.
*
I have been reading the reviews for this film before it opened. What I have noticed is that it has gone up in its rating by over 1.5 points in the IMDb rating scale since opening (from under a 5 to a 6.0).... I noticed that most of the worst reviews were written and posted before it even opened? That got me wondering.... are these "reviewers" really reviewing this film or have they tried to cause a train wreck with it before it even came out?
It looks to me that the vast majority of reviews since the film actually opened have been very high ratings.I thought the film was outstanding- just like the resent reviews.Does anyone else think something fishy is going on with the reviews of this film? Why would some folks want to squash this film? Maybe some journalists out there can take a look at that?
*
Author: hkauteur from Hong Kong
14 June 2013
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Set in 1940s Fushan, Canton province, the martial arts community, lead by Gong Yutian from the north, is retiring and holds a challenge to select an heir to bring southern martial arts to the north. The southern community elects Ip Man, the shining newcomer, up for the challenge. Ip Man develops a friendship with Gong's daughter, Gong Er. The story crosses two decades as Ip Man and Gong Er stand the tests of life. The Japanese Army invasion of Fushan forces Ip Man into poverty and he resettles in Hong Kong. A mutiny within the Gong family sets Gong Er on a quest for revenge. In a time where age-old tradition is being replaced with modernity, how much can one uphold their principles? Who will pass on their lineage?
Who takes 14 years to make a movie? Wong Kar Wai is truly one-of-a-kind. He's the only filmmaker who can take unlimited time with financial support (the backers who most likely will lose their investment) and a team that is willing to plunge to the depths with him. It shows in his work.
Tony Leung's Ip Man is portrayed akin to a normal gentleman. I'm the biggest Donnie Yen fan in the world and as good as he was playing a dramatized version of Ip Man, Tony Leung's scholar-like image is closer to who Ip Man is in real life. On the kung fu side, Leung is not Donnie Yen but achieves the necessary physicality and fights more convincingly than the quick editing suggests. It makes me rethink how the actual Ip Man may have physically expressed himself, and I doubt he would have fought as aggressively as displayed in Donnie Yen's version.
This may be the best Zhang Ziyi role yet. She's never been more likable in any other role I have ever seen her in than here. Gong Er is the film's most relatable character, carries the most pathos and energizes the film by providing the audience someone to root for. When she fights, the stakes are high. There is a somewhat of a battle between fact and fiction within the film's construct. It's almost as if Gong Er, a fictitious character representing tradition, brings the traditional tropes of what one may expect from a martial arts film. While Ip Man, on the other hand, is married to historical fact and delivering the film's message.
The fights are filmed tightly, but for a reason. Wong Kar Wai is interested in the details of the movements: the little twists, nudges and arcs where one gathers power that are all specific to each style of Chinese martial arts. For people who are familiar with the basic concepts of Wing Chun, Baqua, Xingyi and Baijquan, it's quite the rare visual treat as bigger movements usually bold better for on screen fight choreography. For those who are not familiar, fear not! There is a sequence where the film presents these different styles. The over-saturation of Ip Man films really has limited the creativity to presenting Wing Chun as a martial art. It's safe to say most audiences know what Wing Chun looks like now.
It sounds as though there are a lot of qualifiers for one to understand the film. The world of the film exists within the martial arts community of an older time, where people lived with their own set of rules and traditions. Wong Kar Wai is very interested in presenting these traditions, and similar to how he's filming the action, it's like he's trying to keep a record of it. Characters speak in idioms with multiple subtext underneath (as martial artists do). That's a noble effort, but it may prove difficult for English speaking audiences.
A detail I noticed between the early promotional posters to the actual movie poster was that the early ones listed the film's title as The Grandmasters and the actual movie poster's title is named The Grandmaster. It makes me speculate that there probably was a story decision amongst the creative team whether the story should be solely focus on Ip Man or whether it should be about all three of the masters together. That was precisely what the narrative needed to decide on. Whether if I'm right or not, this is a case of a film that clearly has shot too much footage and was forced to be cut down upon its due date. The first cut was reportedly 4 hours and this really came apparent to me upon reflecting about the film. There seems to be a lot lost on the editing floor and unwillingly creates gaps in the narrative.
There is much to love about The Grandmaster. It is not a martial arts movie in the traditional sense in where its conflicts are solved by fighting. No, this is a story about legacy. It's about the deeply embedded Chinese Confucian value of improving the quality of life for future generations by passing on our culture and heritage responsibly. Every character in the film is driven by this single motivation and each take it to different places. To quote a line from the film, (I'm paraphrasing) "A martial artist's biggest enemy is life itself." Ip Man is a grandmaster not because of his physical prowess, but because he stood up to life (which was quite tragic) and kept to his grand vision of spreading Wing Chun. I really love the fact that someone made a film about this.
That's what ultimately won me over about The Grandmaster. It had a lot of heart, in how the film was made, it's microscopic attention to detail and in it's message. It maybe esoteric, and even downright alienating to some viewers, but the rewards are worth the effort!
*
"Don't tell me how good your skills are, how brilliant your master is and how profound your school is. Kung fu - two words - one horizontal, one vertical. If you're wrong, you'll be left lying down. If you're right, you're left standing. And only the ones who are standing have the right to talk."
For all intents and purposes, the film began as a biopic of one man – to be more specific, Ip Man, the influential kung-fu master who was instrumental in spreading the Wing Chun style around the world and who was perhaps better known for being Bruce Lee's master. But in the midst of exploring Ip Man's life, Wong must have been suddenly struck by the thought - What exactly makes Ip Man so special? Or even better, why should a movie set in the golden age of martial arts be solely about one grandmaster?
And so, despite Leung's omniscient voice-over, 'The Grandmaster' is in fact not about Ip Man alone. Be warned therefore, if you are expecting a movie focused on Ip Man, because you're likely to be sorely disappointed – as Tony Leung reportedly is – that you're likely to know more about the Man from the Donnie Yen films.
Indeed, the narrative is the film's biggest handicap, though to be fair, it only becomes apparent later on. The first half-hour begins strongly with a rightful focus on Ip, and key highlights include his initiation into martial arts by his master Chen Heshun (Yuen Woo-Ping) and his loving marriage to Zhang Yongcheng (Song Hye-kyo). Ip's first challenge would come with the arrival of Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang), a venerable kung fu master from northeastern China looking to consolidate his power in the southeast even as he retires.
After Ip goes on to win the battle of minds with Gong, the latter's daughter Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi) stands up to challenge Ip yet again in a bid to restore her family's reputation. That duel also marks a turning point for the movie, which shifts away from Ip and explores the vendetta that ensues between Gong Er and her father's power-hungry protégé Ma San (Zhang Jin) against the backdrop of the Japanese occupation of China.
Against the better advice of her elders, she forsakes her betrothal to avenge the death of her father at Ma San's hands, which culminates in a thrilling battle set at an old railway station in Hong Kong one New Year's Eve. Where is Ip Man's involvement in all this? Admittedly there is little.
Though Wong does bring Ip back into the picture towards the end of the film, his audience is likely to have grown too emotionally detached from the character. A scene towards the end that portrays supposedly the last time Ip met Gong Er is infused with the director's signature sense of longing and regret as the latter reveals her feelings for the former, but how that bears relevance to what Wong is trying to say about Ip or Gong Er's tumultuous lives is too obscure.
In fact, throughout the film, Wong offers little insight into the person of Ip Man. What might have been a meaningful portrait of his relationship with Yongcheng is lost when the latter is practically forgotten in the second half of the movie. We learn little too of Ip's relocation to Hong Kong, and how he built up his reputable school for Wing Chun. All things considered, a more coherent portrait of Gong Er actually emerges from the movie.
Rather than regard it as a Ip Man biopic therefore you'll be better off seeing it as Wong's philosophical musings on martial artists. Fans of the auteur will recognise these familiar themes from his previous works, but Wong's treatment is still unparalleled in conveying regret, longing, and unspoken desires – whether is it Ip Man and Gong Er's mutual affection for each other, or Gong Er's lament for a life less fully lived.
Le Sourd's visuals are also particularly ravishing in the action sequences, designed with much imagination and flair by veteran choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping. The opening sequence that sees Ip Man take on a whole gang of men along a rain-soaked street is filmed with utmost clarity on the beauty and precision of the moves, with the subsequent duels between Ip Man and Gong Yutian as well as Gong Er equally breathtaking to behold.
Keenly aware of the actors' limitations, Yuen goes for elegance over spectacle. Nonetheless, both Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi also perform impressively given their lack of a martial arts background, the months of training to get them prepared physically for their respective roles paying off in the grace and confidence by which they execute their moves.
Nonetheless, Zhang easily trounces Leung in the film's dramatic scenes, the former's combination of grit and vulnerability making Gong Er a more compelling figure than Ip Man. The fault of course isn't Leung's alone, as his usual penchant for nuance and understatement unfortunately working against his portrayal in a narrative that pretty much relegates his character's account as a marker of the passage of time.
Of course, narrative was never a strong suite in Wong's films, which typically were mood pieces boosted by his signature artistic flourishes. These trademarks are still very much alive in 'The Grandmaster', which is easily one of the most beautiful kung fu movies ever made.
But plot plays a much more important role here than in Wong's other films, since it is ultimately through Ip Man's experiences in life that we come to understand his deeper introspections. This is where Wong's film stumbles, relegating Ip Man to a sideshow instead of placing him front and centre – and given all that hype and expectation of Wong's Ip Man biopic, the cut we see here can only be regarded as a disappointment.
*
What a beautiful film this is, there is not a single shot that does not ravish your senses.This is a Wong Kar Wai film about Ip Man, the almost mythical kung fu master who taught Bruce Lee for some time. Films on Ip Man have become a mini cottage industry but Wong Kar Wai looks at not just Ip but the culture that he grew up in and its stalwarts.Every once in a while a kung fu film breaks out of its confines of core Asian patronage and garners a worldwide fan following. Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yamou's The Hero became an international sensations,The Grandmaster should join that small list.
The Grandmaster has been in the making for more than 12 years and is Wong Kar Wai's labour of love.Here he collaborates with his favourite Tony Leung and castes him, rather improbably, as a kung fu master.The film looks at his early years till he set up his martial arts school in Hong Kong.We see him as a boy enrolling at a kung fu school in Foshan,China and become the last student of a legendary teacher. He gets his shot at fame when a famous grandmaster from north, Gong Yotian, who is retiring, comes south and wants to appoint a successor who will carry his tradition forward and integrate the north and south schools.The southerners choose Ip as their man but he must prove his mettle in front of the old master.They face off in an encounter that is all choreography and zero fighting.Ip man passes the acid test of being a man of ideas and not just skill.This is a wonderful scene which sets the tone that this will not be another action packed martial arts film.
Gong Er fights to honour her fathers name. The grandmasters daughter Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi, in her last martial arts film!)has come with him and she has her own way of looking at things.She is hot blooded with a mind of her own and a unique penchant for interpreting her fathers words to drive her individuality.She challenges Ip to a dual and this sets up another amazing scene.They fight but it might as well be lovemaking.They float up in the air and circle each other like dancers more than fierce combatants.The memory of this dual will remain with them for a long time and Wong will show it to us again, this time with their noses brushing lightly.They part with great respect for each other.
Some of these scenes are staged in opulent gilded bordello's with elaborate opera performances. Ip's wife loves opera and he takes her to a bordello, and when Gong comes to meet her father and see his fight with Ip she asks him in wonder "Are you really going to take your daughter to a bordello?"He replies like the wise old master that he is.The winds of change in Chinese society were blowing long before the revolution.
The film follows the story of Gong and Ip as they go their separate ways. Both are challenged by life and face up to them in unique ways by digging into their roots of being disciplined kung fu students. Gong symbolizes female progress in a patriarchal society as well as the tragedy of eternal loss of knowledge because she vows never to teach her art after her father is betrayed by his protégée. This film was originally 4 hours long and Wong sacrifices a lot of detail to distill it into its current 130 mins length.As a result some strands of the narrative suffer, but each scene is so well constructed that we are willing to just soak in the atmosphere.
The master and his students, Bruce Lee was one of them. This is undoubtedly a new kind of martial arts film, that looks closely at the "art" part of martial art, something that has its roots in Confucius's way of ancient Chinese life. Wong is more interested in the roots of kung fu and its place in Chinese history, especially in the first half of the 20th century when China underwent an overwhelming political and social change.While Wong's characters yearn for each other he perhaps yearns for a Chinese way of life that has been lost in the relentless pursuit of economic prosperity. Xi Fei's great film Woman of the Scented Lake also captured this change in Chinese society by using an ambitious rural businesswoman as its lens.
The cinematography is sublime, each shot dazzles us with its perfection.The way Phillipe le Sourd photographs portraits is interesting, using very shallow focus with most of the screen dark.This builds a special intimacy with the characters and serves as a window into their noble souls.The background music is another Wong trademark and in this film too it amplifies and underscores the action with great sophistication. Shigeru Umebayashi is in good form here but he does not have the opportunities of In the Mood for Love kind of grandstanding.The Grandmaster is a film for every lover of cinema, not just for martial arts aficionados, and its a great way to discover the work of a Grandmaster of cinema who inspired the likes of Tarantino.Every artist is also a philosopher and so are Wong and Ip Man.
*
Author: ma-cortes from Santander Spain
15 October 2014This film tells the story of Chinese Martial Arts Master IP man , the most famous fighter of China and around the world ; this is the tale of martial-arts master Ip Man, the man who trained Bruce Lee . In fact , Bruce Lee trained in Wing Chun and later developed his own hybrid martial arts philosophy . IP Man was the founder and spiritual guru of the Win Chun . This luxurious Kung Fu film was marvelously filmed with good production design , colorful cinematography , spectacular combats and breathtaking scenes . The flick displays lots of violence , action filled , fierce fights though turns out to be overlong and some tiring . It deals with Ip Man's (Tony Leung) peaceful existence in Foshan , but his life changes when Gong Yutian (Wan) seeks a successor for his family in Southern China . Ip Man then meets Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang) who challenges him for the sake of regaining her father's honor . Later on , there takes place the Second Chinese-Japanese War , as Ip Man moves to Hong Kong and struggles to provide food and comfort for his family but they decease . While , Gong Er takes the way of revenge after her father is wrongly murdered .
Good film starring Tony Leung , based on the true story of the martial arts master IP Man . Tony Chiu Wai Leung trained four hours a day for a year in preparation for his role . This moving Chop-Socky displays drama , action-packed , thrills , and wild fighting images . It is an action-filled and violent film , being filmed in Shanghái , Foshan, Kaiping ,Guangdong, and Shenyang, Liaoning, China . Director Kar Wai Wong establishes his signature style of kinetically-paced story-telling through sumptuous imagery , leading to international critical acclaim . The picture is full of tumultuous sequences with frenetic action , surprises , fierce combats and groundbreaking struggles . The rousing fights with deadly use of fists , feet and palms ; actors exercised ¨Wing Chun¨ it is a Chinese martial art that emphasizes short-range practical combat with direct punches and blocks and low kicks , its practitioners are trained to quickly approach and engage opponents at close range , this can negate the longer range of taller opponents by attacking from inside their offensive perimeter.
Fights , attacks and exciting combats very well staged by expert fighters , the result is a strong entry for art martial buffs . Amid the glamour and grandeur of the scenarios is developed an intrigue between Chinese-Japanese confrontation and about a fighter master who attempts to restore his name . Groundbreaking combats among Tony Leung , Ziyi Zhang and a lot of enemy fighters . Classic as well as impressive Chop-Socky in which wild fighting scenes provide an overwhelming view of Tony Leung/Ziyi Zhang's skills . Actors made their owns stunts ; some of the players got injured and to had to be hospitalized during the shooting , some of them suffered mild concussions during filming, after being struck several times during fighting scenes .
The motion picture was well directed by Kar Wai Wong , but some moments results to be a little boring and slow moving . He is 1st Chinese to win the Best Director Award at Cannes film Festival (1997) for "In the Mood for Love" and has directed several successes such as ¨My Blueberry nights¨, ¨2046¨, ¨Happy together¨, ¨Fallen Angels¨ and ¨Chungking Express¨. And , of course , this ¨The Grandmaster¨ that was official submission of Hong Kong to the Oscars 2014 best foreign language film category . One reason for the long development time of the movie was that the film spent over a year in editing before director Kar Wai Wong was satisfied .
The ¨Grandmaster¨project was announced almost 10 years before its final release, due to director Kar Wai Wong's endless perfectionism. Several other motion pictures about the Ip Man that were conceived after this announcement most famously ¨Ip Man¨ (2008) by Wilson Yip with Donny Yen , ¨IP Man 2¨ (2010) by Wilson Yip with Donnie Yen as Yip Man , Xiaoming Huang , Wong Shun-Leung , Sammo Hung Kam-Bo , Lynn Hung , Simon Yan and ¨IP Man 3¨ (2013) with Anthony Wong Chau-Sang as Ip Man, Gillian Chung , Jordan Chan and Eric Tsang , all of them were all released in the meantime.
*
Author: Hellmant from United States
24 February 2014'THE GRANDMASTER': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)
Critically acclaimed Kung Fu epic about legendary Chinese martial-arts master Ip Man. Ip Man was the Wing Chun grandmaster and his most famous student was Bruce Lee. This film chronicles the years leading up to his success as a martial arts teacher. It stars Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Ip Man and Zhang Ziyi as Gong Er, his main love interest. Kar Wai Wong directed and co-wrote the movie (with Jingzhi Zou and Haofeng Xu). Wong is famous for directing and writing other popular Hong Kong period piece dramas like '2046' and 'IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE'. I'd rate this flick about the same as Wong's others; I thought it was extremely beautiful to look at but it's also a tad too hard to follow and uninvolving.
The story focuses as much on Gong Er (Ziyi) as it does Ip Man and follows a love story between the two as they keep in contact for many years following a fight for Gong's family's honor. Ip Man had defeated her father, Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang) in a battle that was as much about philosophical ideas as combat. The film follows Ip Man's years during the Second Sino-Japanese War, in 1938, struggling through poverty with his family. It also focuses on Gong Er's attempt at vengeance against the man who murdered her father, Ma San (Zhang Jin).
The story is told in a very disjointed way and it was really hard for me to keep up with what was going on in it. I often find these epic Hong Kong Kung Fu flicks to be dull anyway and wasn't too interested in seeing this one. It did get mostly good reviews from critics though and it's nominated for two 2014 Oscars (in Cinematography and Costume Design). It definitely deserves those award nominations and is very breathtaking to look at. I also think Zhang Ziyi is one of the more beautiful and sexy women in cinema today and she gives a great performance here. I'm not sure how I feel about Leung Chiu-Wai as an actor, he's not bad in this movie but I didn't really learn to care for his character much at all. The martial-arts scenes are grand and epic though and I'm sure fans of the genre will be more than pleased.
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*
When Wong Kar Wai announced he will start to make a movie about Ip Man, a few followed, all made and shown with success before Wong complete his. Knowing that a WKW movie is never straightforward story-telling, I know his will be different from all others but wonder how different will it be compared to his "Ashes of Time". I will not write anything about the story or the script as I believe it will take some joy away from anyone who is going to watch it. I watched the original first released version. I am dumbfounded, especially with Zhang Ziyi(Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha, 2046)and Tony Leung's action.
They are not Jet Li or Michelle Yeoh but in this movie, they fought so convincingly well that you will think they really know Wing Chun(a type of Chinese Kung-fu). For those who find Wong Kar Wai's past movies too stylish, artistic or difficult to understand, this one is different and most suitable for the general audience but without lacking in style or arts. If there is any complaint, it will be from fans of Tony Leung who may feel that he is overshadowed by Zhang, especially in the action scenes. Just like her Crouching Tiger movie, I believe she acted so well, so much so that the director kept more of her scenes for the final movie.(She is nominated for best actress in the coming China-equivalent of the Oscar).
Never have I seen any movie in the past where an actress did so well in both action and drama scenes in the same film. Another actor deserved a mention is Taiwanese Zhang Chen; he is equally as compelling as Zhang in both action and drama here although his screen time is short. Tony Leung did not give me any surprise aside from the action scenes. As for the cinematography, editing and the rest, I think others have already raved enough. Go watch it before reading too much. This is what I call a real movie. It's meant to be seen, not read.
