Review of The Grandmaster (2013) by Ian G — 08 Mar 2014

As a relative newcomer but being casually aware of Ip mans status in cinema history as the teacher of martial arts to giant Bruce Lee, I was expecting something more epic and engaging, but under Kar Wai Wongs direction the tone of the film is more of a romantic historical look back at his life in a sometimes confusing non chronological order peppered with the occasional stunning action sequence.

A little frustrating since some of the sections of the film feel like that, sections as opposed to an overall experience took me out of the overall narrative despite the best attempts for Yo Ping doing the action sequences and decent performances coming from Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang who I have totally missed in a lot of big projects of late.

Have a feeling this one was just the wrong pairing of director style and subject matter although worthy of a peek. And despite that weird broken frame rate technique that crops up from time to time I can see why it was nominated for Cinematography at this year's Oscars.

Gorgeous.