Yi dai zong shi
一代宗师
Directed by:
Kar-wai WongCast:
Tony Chiu-wai Leung, Cung Le, Elvis Tsui, Lorraine Song, Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Brigitte Lin, Meng Lo, Hai-peng Lu, Berg Ng, Julian Cheung, Max Zhang (more)Plots(1)
Martial arts drama written, produced and directed by Kar Wai Wong. Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man (Tony Chiu Wai Leung) travelled from Foshan in China to Hong Kong after the Sino-Japanese War where he progressed within his martial art and took on his rival Gong Yutian (Qingxiang Wang). With Gong retiring and ready to announce his successor, Ip Man set up a school and started teaching his beloved art in order to find a suitable heir. (Metrodome Distribution)
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Reviews (4)
Only for fans of slanted-eye-kung-fu. For someone who’s not into oriental culture and film lyricism it’s awfully boring, even though it has beautifully shot fight scenes.
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A melodramatic attempt at a poetic illustration of the philosophy of kung-fu in a non-genre art film about the last grandmasters, when all the time you are being slapped in the face with “let’s talk about philosophy over a cup of tea" with action-packed “most effective ineffective fights for miles around, sparkling with Hollywood nonsense like never-ending trains". In both cases, this might have worked superbly, but together it works about as well as a Terrence Malick movie cut with Bay-style action. The only one-on-one fight scene that fits this thought-demanding course is the “cookie scene".
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Visually beautiful, the fights here are interesting and I think the film holds quite well to reality, although it stylizes everything. This is a film that will truly be enjoyed the most by those who appreciate the Asian way of life and love martial arts films. This is truly about art and it is presented as such. Beautiful combat, but it is not so spontaneous. After all, it mainly focuses on visual impressions and whether you appreciate the depth that exists in the life of someone who practices martial arts.
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Don’t expect an adventurous eye-candy epic like John Woo’s Red Cliff. Here the characters speak cryptically about political contexts that the ordinary viewer cannot understand. The film leaps through historical periods, exchanging characters around the central couple, and relating to anyone’s drama or understanding the meaning of their journey is for invited guests only (among whom I am not). It can’t be compared to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where we had three characters, a subtle depiction of their relationships, a slow, poetic narrative, and the irresistible, exotic magic of the Far East. The Grandmaster is completely different. But as always with Kar-wai Wong, it has excellent music (I appreciated the variation on Ennio Morricone’s motif from Once Upon a Time in America at the end) and decent fight scenes.
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