The Grandmaster

I've never taken a shine to martial arts pictures. It may be the cultural differences, or it may be annoying things like how one man takes out a bunch of fighters because they don't rush him; instead they just step up one by one. But in there own way, martial arts movies are just as valid as Western genres like the western and the gangster film, but with an Asian sensibility, about honor as much as flying fists.

Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster is just such a film. It is a very stylish kung fu movie, where the kung fu is the main thing. It is based on a real person, Ip Man, a Chinese kung fu expert who went on to teach Bruce Lee. We follow his story against the backdrop of the Japanese invasion of China, and it is a lush, beautiful film that deeply resonated with me.

Tony Leung is Ip Man. There is some explanation of how North and South China used different styles of kung fu. Ip used Wing Chun, but other styles are shown, each having its own master. The Northern Grandmaster, Gong, (Wang Qingxiang) visits the south, and finds Ip Man a worthy opponent. He hopes to unite the two halves of the country against the impending Japanese invasion, but it's unclear how kung fu is effective when the enemy has guns.

The film then skips over the war years rather hurriedly, and finds Ip Man in Hong Kong in 1950, where he teaches kung fu. He meets again Gong's daughter, (Zhang Ziyi) who is a doctor and hooked on opium. She tells him how she avenged her father's death against his rogue successor, Ma San (Zhang Jin) in a showdown on a train platform. This scene, as stylistic and thrilling as a gunfight in a Western, is bravura filmmaking, with all elements--editing, cinematography, costumes, and fight choreography, coming together to scintillating effect.

But The Grandmaster, to me, never transcended its set pieces. The others include the opening fight scene, in which Ip Man defeats a crowd of fighters in the rain, or when he and Ziyi have a playful fight in a brothel, trying not to break anything. That scene is as romantic as a dance between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

The stuff between the fights is a bit turgid, and perhaps better suited to someone who understands the cultural importance of kung fu to the Chinese people. Still, I give this film a high recommendation, for Wong's direction, the photography of Philippe Le Sourd, the fight choreography of Yuen Woo-Ping, and the heart-stopping beauty of Zhang Ziyi.