Yi dai zong shi
一代宗师
Directed by:
Kar-wai WongCast:
Tony Chiu-wai Leung, Cung Le, Elvis Tsui, Lorraine Song, Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Brigitte Lin, Meng Lo, Hai-peng Lu, Berg Ng, Julian Cheung, Max Zhang (more)Plots(1)
The Grandmaster is a 2013 Hong Kong-Chinese martial arts drama film based on the life story of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man. Ip Man's peaceful life in Foshan changes after Gong Yutian seeks an heir for his family in Southern China. Ip Man then meets Gong Er who challenges him for the sake of regaining her family's honour. After the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ip Man moves to Hong Kong and struggles to provide for his family. In the mean time, Gong Er chooses the path of vengeance after her father was killed by Ma San. (Roadshow Entertainment)
(more)Reviews (4)
Only for fans of slanted-eye-kung-fu. For someone who’s not into oriental culture and film lyricism it’s awfully boring, even though it has beautifully shot fight scenes.
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Don’t expect an adventurous eye-candy epic like John Woo’s Red Cliff. Here the characters speak cryptically about political contexts that the ordinary viewer cannot understand. The film leaps through historical periods, exchanging characters around the central couple, and relating to anyone’s drama or understanding the meaning of their journey is for invited guests only (among whom I am not). It can’t be compared to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where we had three characters, a subtle depiction of their relationships, a slow, poetic narrative, and the irresistible, exotic magic of the Far East. The Grandmaster is completely different. But as always with Kar-wai Wong, it has excellent music (I appreciated the variation on Ennio Morricone’s motif from Once Upon a Time in America at the end) and decent fight scenes.
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A melodramatic attempt at a poetic illustration of the philosophy of kung-fu in a non-genre art film about the last grandmasters, when all the time you are being slapped in the face with “let’s talk about philosophy over a cup of tea" with action-packed “most effective ineffective fights for miles around, sparkling with Hollywood nonsense like never-ending trains". In both cases, this might have worked superbly, but together it works about as well as a Terrence Malick movie cut with Bay-style action. The only one-on-one fight scene that fits this thought-demanding course is the “cookie scene".
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It’s visually beautiful, the battles here are interesting, and I think the film stays quite close to reality, although it stylizes everything. This is a film that those who appreciate Asian culture and love martial arts movies will enjoy the most. This is really about art, and it is presented as such. Beautiful fights, but not as spontaneous or chaotic. Above all, it was about visual impressions and whether you appreciate the depth found in the life of someone who practices martial arts.
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