The Grandmaster: Heartfelt look at master of kung fu

By Peter Howell

Published on Aug 30, 2013 in The Record (Ontario, Canada)

We're reminded early on in Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster that China's Yangtze River makes a natural divide of northern and southern schools of kung fu technique. There's an even more elemental geometry at play in title warrior Ip Man's description: "Two words — horizontal, vertical."

In other words, with kung fu, you're either standing or lying flat on your back. Ip Man, played with white hat, black robes and stoic magnetism by Wong regular Tony Leung Chiu-wai, intends to always be standing. The middle-aged fighter is as good as his word in a rainy prologue where he takes on a group of younger assailants.

The movie could use more of this kind of directness. A martial arts picture isn't a new idea for Wong, whose earlier Ashes of Time Redux was like a Zen western take on the genre.

But it's still a departure for the Hong Kong auteur, who normally concerns himself with matters of the mind and heart rather than those of hand and foot. And he can't resist drifting back to form, even when bodies are in motion.

The Grandmaster is a more conventional martial arts move by Wong, and there's much to applaud about its early focus on Ip Man, creator of the Wing Chun defensive style of kung fu and teacher of the legendary Bruce Lee.

Ip Man's story has been told many times before by other filmmakers. Wong builds upon it, establishing the noble fighter as a reflective but still ferocious grandmaster in 1936 in Foshan, Ip Man's home city in southern China.

As Ip Man states via voice-over, his life before age 40 was one of wealth and privilege, with more than ample comforts for himself, his wife and their two children.

His middle years aren't nearly so happy. Ip Man faces challenges from an older rival grandmaster to the north, Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang), who is making plans to retire in grand style and wants to show the southern schools which side of the Yangtze rules. Gong already has a successor in mind, the arrogant Ma San (Zhang Jun), who isn't going to just stand around.

Ip Man will need to sort those two out, and also deal with Gong's daughter, Er (Zhang Ziyi), a fierce and avenging battler in her own right whose story is one of several tangents The Grandmaster takes on its circuitous route to enlightenment and justice. Er's tangles with Ip Man will not all be in anger. Later scenes in Hong Kong will recall the moody amour of Wong's masterpiece In the Mood for Love, with all the regretful sighs this reference implies.

The Grandmaster seems to lose track of Ip Man at times, even as the main story traces the nominally linear narrative of his fall from affluence under Japanese occupation, his tragedy-sparked relocation to Hong Kong in 1950 and his new life there as a teacher of the Wing Chun fighting style.

Indeed, the film's most thrilling action sequence doesn't even involve him. It's an expertly choreographed showdown between Er and Ma San in a train station on a snowy New Year's Eve in 1940.

An argument can be made that Ziyi is the real star of The Grandmaster, since her character Er has a much more involving story arc.

In some other fight scenes, choreographed by genre great Yuen Woo-Ping, I found myself wishing for fewer close-ups and more wide-angle shots from Wong's new director of photography, Philippe Le Sourd. I wanted to see more bodies soar through the air, just like in a regular kung fu movie.

Wong is finding his way in a genre he's not naturally drawn to, and it may be that he's not satisfied with all of his choices. But kudos to him for trying something different.

As a character says in The Grandmaster, "How boring it would be without regrets."

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