Discuss The Grandmaster
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This is the best film I've seen from Kar-Wai Wong in years
posted by tmdb53400018STAFFMOD on March 16, 2017 at 12:24 AM
in '13, romantic arthouse director Kar-Wai Wong made a film about Yip Man aka Ip Man, a master teacher of both Wing Chun and a guy named Bruce Lee. Anyone who thinks Wong needs to just stick to romance-type films needs to open their minds a bit. Thanks to fantastically choreographed action sequences shot with daring camerawork, Wong one-upped his own martial arts film Ashes of Time here. The film also has extraordinary costume design and production design. Every once in a while, watching this, I thought that maybe Wong had become a 3- or 4-trick pony. But then, the film would do something beautiful that I'd never seen from him before. The Grandmaster only has about a 63% score here, but I'd rate it about 7 out of 10. I got a big kick out of it.
Thoughts, anyone?
Reply by tmdb53400018
on March 16, 2017 at 1:31 PM
Bump.
Reply by Fergoose
on December 21, 2017 at 3:34 PM
I've had to give up on it just now. A couple of WKW films are among my favourites (albeit not in the past 15 years), and Kung-fu films can be outstanding (Touch of Zen, Once Upon a Time in China), but I found nothing to engage me here having seen several films about the same main character.
Call me old school, but I want my on screen Kung fu to be done by someone who is both athletic and incredibly skilled in martial arts. Not by an actor with no such talents and an abundance of camera trickery. I want to see Usain Bolt sprint, not Denzel Washington with the camera running at 2x speed. One is breathtakingly impressive and the other is all a bit unnecessary and very hard to take seriously.
Time was I would have nearly died with anticipation for a WKW martial arts film...
Reply by tmdb53400018
on December 21, 2017 at 5:41 PM
What are your thoughts on Ashes of Time, Fergoose?
Reply by Fergoose
on January 27, 2018 at 6:26 AM
Afraid I didn't like that either, although it's so long ago I can't remember the specifics of why (I probably felt there was more style than substance). It is good that directors can change their styles over time, but unfortunately it sometimes means you can end up falling out of love with them. Such is life!
Reply by bratface
on October 6, 2023 at 5:24 PM
Tony Leung Chiu-wai trained for five years in 'Wing Chun' in preparation for this role (he broke his arm in training, so the film was delayed a bit).