Review: The Grandmaster stars Crouching Tiger’s martial arts guru
THE martial arts guru behind Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is at the top of his game, but at times, the action is lost.
Leigh Paatsch
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The Grandmaster (M)
Director: Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood For Love)
Starring: Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi, Wang Qingxiang.
Rating: ***
He kept on fighting the good fight
It has been a good while since we had a traditional martial arts movie that really means business. Though The Grandmaster doesn’t quite break the drought, there is just enough highly creative rough stuff to justify a look-see.
This is the true story of the late and legendary Ip Man (Tony Leung), an acknowledged guru of the Wing Chun discipline who passed on many of his trade secrets to the great Bruce Lee.
This intermittently dazzling biopic focuses on the 1930s through to the 1950s, a key period in Ip Man’s evolution as one of the most influential fighters in Chinese history.
Director Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood For Love) perhaps overdoes the atmospherics at the expense of action at critical moments.
It may not totally be the fault of the filmmaker. Rumour has it Kar Wai envisioned The Grandmaster as a two-part, four-hour epic, only to cave to pressures demanding a harsh edit for the international market.
Nevertheless, the innovative combat choreography of Yuen Wo Ping (Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) remains a wonder to behold.
You can spot Wo Ping’s singular influence in the sequence where Zhang Ziyi (another Crouching Tiger graduate) unleashes the deadly “64 Hands” attack technique.
The Grandmaster is now screening exclusively at the Cinema Nova, Carlton, and in NSW, Qld. It will be coming to other states soon.
Originally published as Review: The Grandmaster stars Crouching Tiger’s martial arts guru
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