Wick's Review

Summary - OK 2.5

Stately to a fault, reverential to an extreme, The Grandmaster is kung fu cinema elevated to formal art. Stodginess aside, it no doubt lingers in the mind’s eye of hard core kung fu fans, let alone for the legendary Ip Man’s disciples. For the rest of us – focused on the Bruce Lee connection – it drags more than a little.

Not that there’s not lots to appreciate, starting with the performances of the leads and the inspiring story of Ip Man himself, the Grandmaster of Wing Chun kung fu and Bruce Lee’s teacher. Enter the Dragon fans will recognize Lee’s characteristic relaxed fighting posture: open handed and still between strikes.

That said, the fighting is literally unbelievable, not just the lack of serious injury but especially the way a Grandmaster would easily defeat a dozen trained fighters. While fine in fictional kung fu movies, The Grandmaster purports to be grounded in reality. Apparently not.

Notes

• Bruce Lee is represented at the very end as a young boy studying with Ip Man. IOW, don’t see The Grandmaster expecting much in the way of Lee.
• Ip Man and its sequel Ip Man 2: Legend of the Grandmaster are competing and superior biopics. Netflix Instant has the first one.

Acting - Great 4.0

Tony Leung makes a striking figure as Ip Man, sort of a boring guy with a supernatural fighting ability. His charisma jumps off screen even to Western audiences.

Ziyi Zhang matches up well to him as his rival and unrequited lover. She too has a multiculti charisma.

Amongst the rest of the large cast, Qingxiang Wang stands out as her revered father, a Northern Grandmaster.

Film - OK 2.5

The American version of The Grandmaster is edited down from the original. Not enough however, as I found myself checking my watch on more than one occasion, notwithstanding the epigrammatic dialog, graceful fighting and eye-opening lens into China and Hong Kong.

The didactic repetition of Ip Man facing off with one school of fighting after another becomes tedious, as does the supposedly realistic defeat of gangs of kung fu fighters by single Grandmasters.

Edge - Risqué 1.7

The violence approximates that in a comic-book movie: i.e., there’s little to no blood and the consequences of apparently brutal violence are nearly non-existant.

Reality - Surreal 2.6

A biopic shouldn’t be this surreal, even if the exploits of its subject inspired countless fictional movies.

Surrealism aside, The Grandmaster provides a lens into China and Hong Kong, if believable.

• Pre-war China was heavily class-based and also rife with a wide variety of social hierarchies. In that light, mastery of martial arts appears to have been a rare way to achieve social mobility.
• Brothels are where all manner of society met, including martial artists, their wives and daughters. Curious.
• While China perfected pre-industrial martial arts, Japan used industrialized martial power to conquer the country. Ironic.

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