The Grandmaster Reviews

Wong Kar-wai  is another director who took his goddamned  time to finally release a new directing effort and this movie came 6 long years after his previous one. To be honest, when I heard about this project, I had some mixed feelings. I mean, seriously, after the impressive 'Yip Man', did we really need another biopic about the great martial-arts master? Eventually, even though it turned out to be fairly entertaining, I can’t say it really blew me away. Basically, as usual with this director, it was visually very neat, there was a nice soundtrack and, once again, Tony Leung gave a really solid performance. The biggest problem I had was with the story. In my opinion, it was all rather murky and, above all, I didn't really understand why they spent at least 1 third of the movie dealing with Ziyi Zhang's character. I mean, it was pretty obvious that she had a crush on Ip Man but he didn’t seem to share those feelings or to really care so much about her. Even the fighting scenes didn't completely work for me. Sure, they were pretty badass, no doubt about it, but there was too much slow-motion  and special effects involved so they slightly lost their impact in my opinion. To conclude, even though it turned out to be rather disappointing, it was still a decent watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you're interested in Wong Kar-wai's work.

I see why martial arts are art. And that, more than plot and everythingg else, is the core of the film. Wong Kar Wai excells in the fights, in special the one int he trian statios while trians are departing. Stylized as it gets.

I think Yip man role spared no one among Chinese and Hong Kong actors. For the past few years movie based on Yip man get released every year. Especially the directors and producers are very enthusiastic to make a movie about this man. They are trying to pick the story from what the earlier movies had failed or missed to tell. In such perception this is done. I am very much surprised to see this movie to get nominated for the upcoming OSCAR (2014) ceremony. Is this movie really worth for that honour, well that is why I am here to brief in this review.

Truly, I am not understanding the motivation of director and writer what they wanted to tell about Yip man. It was not actually a complete Yip man story. A tale fairly balanced between a charcter called Gong Er and him with the backdrop of Sino-Japan war. Technically it was very stylish and rich, but storywise it is a vastly letdown. When movies are based on someone's real life, filmmakers can change a few things to suit cinematically. That means they should not bore the audience with unimpressive and uninspiring scenes. Yeah, I did not find one single portion of the movie that attracted me.

They showed stories that happened between 1930 to 1972. Over 40 years of span in the movie what I saw was the pieces of stories without exciting ones. Honestly, I think Donnie Yen's 'Ip Man' movie series were the best so far. The American Academy Award people had failed to grab those golden opportunities and now they are holding this movie's tail. Without any doubt Danish drama 'The Hunt' going to win the OSCAR and soon everyone will forget this movie.

6.5/10