Review of The Grandmaster (2013) by That_Jabroni — 14 Sep 2013

Reasons why 'The Grandmaster' failed to me ~.

* Don't expect to watch an Ip Man movie.

The movie tells a story about several grandmasters and Ip Man is in the middle. It seems the main premise was about the Gong Er and the teaching of Reasons why 'The Grandmaster' failed to me ~.

* Don't expect to watch an Ip Man movie.

The movie tells a story about several grandmasters and Ip Man is in the middle. It seems the main premise was about the Gong Er and the teaching of the '46 hands'. The story bounces between Ip Man, Gong Er, Ma Sin, and etc. It was all over the place. Ergo, I never gotten the chance to relate to the characters. I wish the film focused on one character.

* Pull the camera back, please.

Granted the film was at times had inspiring cinematography, but it feels congested with back to back close ups or half-body shots with unnecessary or misplaced change of shutter speed to normal frame rate film editing. There was scene where Ma Sin and the Grandmaster was talking to each other. I never caught on until 45+ seconds of dialogue. Why? There was no establishing shot where you know there are two people in the room. But the funniest of them all is the freaking close ups of feet and icicles!

* Don't expect to watch a Kung-Fu movie.

A top with close-ups. I like to watch a martial arts film where I can see both fighters duking it (and subtract the change shutter speed frame rate too). The fight scenes were really short. It seems the director don't trust the actors remembering fight choreography. The longest fight scene was Gong Er vs. Ma Sin which was the climax of the film (again, not a Ip Man movie). My experience of the film, it is more artsy than Kung-Fu.

* It needs a bit of editing love.

I do like artsy films. I do like the film's cinematography and scene lighting, but the fight scenes was cuts were too fast while dramatic scenes were too long. In some dramatic scenes, there people turning their heads as if it was the opening scene of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal' music video. Heck, one point they reused the same head turn of an old guy wearing a hat with a yellow-green-ish lighting. It was unnecessary fillers throughout the film. There was a scene were Gong Er take a puff of opium and then she lays down on her bed. Within that scene, there were about four shots in her bed that were very similar and it lasted about 60 to 120 seconds.

Overall...

I walked out the theater without any redeeming feelings to say 'The Grandmaster' is good or bad or good-bad film. It was just awful. If I was exposed to the director, Kar Wai Wong, other films, I may have a different view. If I knew his other works. I would expect “The Grandmaster' an artsy film. With the exposure of Ip Man and 'a film of the martial arts teacher of Bruce Lee' being the main tag-line of the description and trailers, I expected a Kung-Fu film.