By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Cung Le | Qingxiang Wang | Tony Chiu-Wai Leung | Ziyi Zhang
Original language title: Yi dai zong shi
Country: china, hong_kong
Year: 2013
Running time: 108
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462900/combined
Jason says: “Wong Kar-wai is a notoriously slow worker in a movie industry that can turn things over with ruthless efficiency, and as evidence I present the four movies about martial-arts master Ip Man (by two different directors and starring three different actors) produced between his announcing this film as his next project and the thing hitting screens. And while it’s a little difficult for those who have eaten those up to avoid the feeling of having been there and done that as a result, a new WKW movie is an event in and of itself, and this one doesn’t disappoint.
“It starts in 1930s Foshan, where highly-skilled wing chun practitioner Ip Man (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) is chosen as the southern representative to spar with visiting northern grandmaster Gong Yuitan (Wang Qing-xiang) to begin work on the unification of the two regions’ fighting styles in advance of the inevitable Japanese invasion. Gong is retiring, and while he has chosen a successor in Ma San (Zhang Jin), he has only taught the 64 Hands style to his daughter Ruomei (Zhang Ziyi), familiarly called ‘Gong Er’. A connection forms between Ip Man and Gong Er, but the Sino-Japanese war will prevent them from meeting again until 1950, when both are refugees in Hong Kong, and soon cut off from their homes in what is now the People’s Republic.
“At least in the American cut screened, THE GRANDMASTER starts with action, a big fight scene choreographed by Yuen Wo-ping, which quickly establishes Ip Man’s prowess against a crowd and offers a nice preview of what’s to come. Like many of the fights in the movie, this isn’t so much a battle of good versus evil, or even people with opposing interests, but of masters testing themselves against each other. Great pride will often be on the line, but Yuen and Wong have a chance to show off a little here and stage things to look cool, or explain the differences of various styles and their origins before demonstrating them. There’s a particularly impressive sequence relatively early on where various older masters demonstrate the individual techniques that Gong Yutian has mastered to Ip Man, which makes the ensuing sequence when they are all in play all the more exciting. You don’t have to be the sort of martial-arts fan that dives into this sort of minutia to enjoy the fights – the filmmakers offer up slick packages with a little wire work, a lot of style, and plenty of hard, quick hits that the casual action movie fan will thoroughly enjoy – but the attention to detail is impressive.
“Will the casual action fan get quite the same pleasure from the parts of the parts of the film that focus on longing and loss? Maybe not, but this is a Wong Kar-wai picture, and that’s as inevitable a part of the picture as the 1950s Hong Kong setting may seem. It’s an interestingly different take on the emotion, though, as what passes between Ip Man and Gong Er is not necessarily romance – certainly, not the sort that poses any threat to Ip’s marriage – as much as a connection between kindred spirits. The Grandmaster trades in the same emotion that Wong has built a career on, though the longing and nostalgia are often expressed in terms of action, whether it be Ip Man wishing he could travel to the north to spar with Gong Er rather than have a tryst, or the mysterious assassin-cum-barber (Chang Chen) who longs to hear the sounds of blades clashing again,
Though Ip Man is the primary focus of the film (though it occasionally shifts narrators), Gong Er arguably has the better story; while it initially looks like just another ‘woman in a man’s world,’ it becomes beautifully operatic in how she responds to this injustice (among others), with the biggest stumble being in how it ends. To a certain extent, the film as a whole stumbles at the conclusion, although it’s not clear whether that’s because this ‘simplified’ cut tries to fit footage intended to be used in a different style of movie into a different pattern or because Ip Man’s life doesn’t quite fit the narrative.
“It’s reflected a bit in the performances, too. Tony Leung Chiu-wai is fine as Ip, playing the character with a little more ambition and eagerness than other iterations (especially Anthony Wong’s recent portrayal in IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT), and he expresses longing and sadness well enough. Zhang Ziyi, meanwhile, gets to do a lot more with her meatier role, especially during her initial meeting with Ip Man and her war flashback. It’s great to watch her move between the dutiful daughter and someone with strong, aggressive emotions and opinions of her own; she and Yeun Wo-ping bring this out fantastically during her fight scenes. The roll call of kung fu masters is great, too: Certainly, Wang Qing-xiang and ‘John’ Zhang Jin give fine performances as Gong Er’s proud father and his prize pupil, but there’s at least a good half-dozen actors who give their characters memorable personalities in the moments before they give us memorable fights.
“The picture is as beautiful as one might expect. Wong and his team know how to tie mood to time and place, with the start of the film featuring an up-and-coming Ip Man wearing a snazzy western hat and the whole thing shot in either with a slick black-and-white palette or bright colors, while wartime takes on a grainy documentary style and the Hong Kong scenes look somewhat faded, with the previously up-to-date Ip starting to look like an anachronism. It’s done relatively quietly, but the way every detail of the movie follows Ip Man’s fortunes certainly makes it feel that much better even when it’s not quite up to Wong’s standards.
“Of course, the original Chinese cut may in fact be just that good, and I’m anxious to see it. In fact, I considered skipping seeing this version entirely just out of general annoyance at how The Weinstein Company treats its Asian acquisitions, which can border on contempt. The thing is, Wong Kar-wai makes beautiful movies that deserve the big-screen treatment, and The Grandmaster is both striking enough and good enough to deserve to be seen that way, even if does tacitly support cutting movies that likely don’t need it. 4+ cats
“Seen 2 September 2013 in AMC Boston Common (first-run, DCP)”
Thom says: “I really connected with your review Jay because I saw this film on Wednesday and it’s fresh in my mind. Naturally, I rushed to see it due to my love of Wong Kar-wai (one of my TOP 10 Living Directors) and I wish I had read this previous to seeing the film as I was educated by your definitive review. Of the current Ip Man series quintet I’ve only seen IP MAN & THE LEGEND IS BORN: IP MAN so obviously this was an elucidation. Maybe I’ve seen far too many martial arts films for me to retain a fighting interest in the genre but naturally Wong Kar-wai’s touches go for a certain cinematic thrill that elevated my connection to the film. I gave it 4 cats but that’s the lowest rating I’ve given any film by the director and I’ve seen every film he’s made.”
Tran says: “I’ve seen the HK DVD version and this ‘Weinstein’ cut of it, I have to say they are both cut by WKW. The fight scene between Ip Man and E Xian Tian (Chang Chen’s character) when Ip used a pair of iron chopsticks against E’s raiser is not in the HK version. And the English Inter-titles made things clearer to non-Chinese audiences. But there are other missing pieces here too that are in the HK version, the stories of Ip and Gong Er are mixing up in the HK versions.
“The English subtitles are missing some of the true meanings of what are being said. What Ma San said to Gong Er when she challenged him after her father’s funeral wasn’t quite carried over in the subtitles. What he meant was ‘You have no cause to challenge me because you’re engaged to be married, i.e. you’re not related to Gong Yutian.’ That’s why Gong Er had to take the drastic steps afterwards to be a lay Buddhist nun and made those pledges so she could avenged her father’s death.”
Kyle says: “THE GRANDMASTER — Wong Kar Wai’s grand, moving, spectacular epic on martial arts master Ip Man, firmly emphasizing the ‘arts’ in martial arts — is the third movie about Ip Man a dedicated Hong Kong cinema enthusiast could have seen in the last six weeks at the state-of-the-art Walter Reade Theater of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Its predecessors during the New York Asian Film Festival were Herman Yau’s THE LEGEND IS BORN: IP MAN, a somewhat fanciful speculation on the early years of Ip Man, focusing on his education in the art of Wing Chun (his coach is played by Ip Chun, the real-life son of Ip Man) and functioning dramatically as a prequel to the two Wilson Yip-directed, Donnie Yen-starring, Ip Man movies, IP MAN and IP MAN 2: LEGEND OF THE GRANDMASTER; and IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT, with the great Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong as Ip Man, in the story of Ip Man’s life from his move to Hong Kong in 1949 and the establishment of his Wing Chun school, up to his death, including actual 1972 footage during the end titles of Ip Man practicing during the final weeks of his life. Fans will relish a few brief scenes of visits from his most famous pupil, Bruce Lee. Wong Kar Wai had been planning his Ip Man movie for more than a decade. The wait was well worth the while.
“THE GRANDMASTER commences in Foshan in 1936, with an astonishing scene of Ip Man and a sizable group of adversaries fighting in the rain, the speed of edits and sounds of combat combining in dizzying tension to highlight dramatically a sequence by one of the great masters of international cinema at the height of his creative powers. And it is only the first of many such. Ip Man maintains that only two words matter in martial arts — vertical and horizontal — but differing styles of combat between Northern and Southern China insure that there will be fierce partisans of those styles. Northern master Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang) announces his retirement and appoints as successor Ma San (Zhang Jin), about whom there is immediate dissension and fighting. Gong Yutian’s daughter Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi, outstanding in MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, 2046, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, HERO, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON) attempts to dissuade her father from the controversy, as Southern masters choose Ip Man to be their champion, and he fights three masters of different combat styles. The differences between Ip Man and Gong Er prove to be regarding ideas rather than strict martial arts techniques, and the highlight of the film is an intense battle between the two resting decisively on who breaks a piece of furniture. Ip Man breaks a floorboard and loses, cementing an unbreakable lifelong bond between the two.
“War between China and Japan results in Ip Man becoming poverty stricken and losing much of his family to starvation, and the despicable Ma San killing Gong Yutian. In a later flashback, Gong Er avenges her father’s murder by defeating Ma San in combat at a train station (unavoidably referencing both DOCTOR ZHIVAGO and ANNA KARENINA), but suffering severe injuries that render her incapable of continuing to practice martial arts. The narrative then transitions to 1952 and the final meeting between Ip Man and Gong Er, who dies after confessing her romantic longings for Ip Man. His Wing Chun school of Kung Fu flourishes and he dies twenty years later, sadder but successful. Director Wong strongly weights the narrative emphasis in favor of Gong Er, who is ultimately ‘The Grandmaster’ in the art of life, even if Ip Man is ‘The Grandmaster’ in the art of Wing Chun technique. And however great Tony Leung is as an actor and a Wong collaborator, he yields the emotional power of the film to the equally great actress and Wong collaborator Zhang Ziyi. And speaking of greatness, Wong Kar-wai triumphantly reasserts his claim to being one of the great directors of our era with THE GRANDMASTER, and it is with pleasure that this list of his classic achievements is added: CHUNGKING EXPRESS, ASHES OF TIME, HAPPY TOGETHER, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, 2046, and MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS. THE GRANDMASTER is essential for fans of the director, of the Ip Man story, of martial arts movies, of Hong Kong cinema, and anyone responsive to the dramatic possibilities of game-changing international film masterworks.
“Worth repetition is this translation from the Hong Kong Athletic Association plaque: ‘The Wing Chun Code of Conduct, said to have originated with Leung Jan and passed to the current generation by Ip Man, serves as a reminder to all practitioners that their martial art represents more than just fighting. It requires the acceptance of a strong moral philosophy framed in courage, honor, ethics, and humble etiquette. Wing Chun must be preserved for warriors, not bullies and braggarts. Living this code of honor is the way of the warrior.’ 5 cats
“Monday, August 5, 2013 at the Walter Reade Theater, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York.”