Review of The Grandmaster (2013) by Manny C — 15 Sep 2013

I was admittedly apprehensive about seeing Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster since the film is a tad shorter than its international release, but Wong feels he's successfully refashioned his film for American audiences.

Cool. What we get in The Grandmaster is an uneven, but a dazzling film bursting with ravishing romance and eye-popping action. You don't expect anything less from the Hong Kong visionary who incredible films include Ashes of Time, Happy Together, Chungking Express and In The Mood For Love.

Wong, now 57, makes films you fully inhabit, imbued with vivid colors of both the settings and emotions roiling within the characters. On the surface it seems like a standard bio pic since the amazing Tony Leung plays Ip Man, the martial arts master who counted Bruce Lee among his many pupils.

But there's something more at work here. We see that in Ip Man's interactions with other fighter in bracing scenes of clashing styles and methodology, and it soon becomes apparent Wong is working to illustrate a long view of Chinese history.

With the aid of legendary fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping and cinematographer extraordinaire Phillippe Le Sourd, Wong makes what typically looks like acts of violence into bruising poetry. When he's asked to show what he has for master Gong Baosen (Wang Qingxiang), Ip Man achieves a weirdly peaceful victory that wins him the ire of the old man's daughter Gong Er (the luminous Ziyi Zhang).

Zhang, so amazing in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of Flying Daggers, is living, breathing poetry in motion. Her scenes with Leung are beyond electrifying, especially when she's just silent and standing perfectly still.

And as is typical with Wong, the yearning is palpable. The Grandmaster isn't perfect, but it is a huge thrill seeing a cinematic master at work.