It pains me to write that the long awaited, Wong Kar Wai-helmed martial arts epic The Grandmaster is not martial arts masterpiece we all dreamed it might have been.
At least the U.S. cut isn’t. I’ve been assured by friends who have seen it that the original, international cut of the film is much better. But I can’t review that cut as that isn’t what will be shown to American audiences and I have not seen it. My understanding is that there are upwards of thirty minutes cut from the original film, and that title cards and timelines have all been re-arranged as well. Peter Martin at Twitch film argues that this isn’t merely a trimmed down version, but rather a totally different film.
All of this makes me extremely sad because I’ll never be able to take my first viewing of The Grandmaster back. And it was a tough viewing. I found myself antsy and uncomfortable in the theater, certain that this cut of the film was actually three hours long when in reality it clocks in at well under two hours. At this point, the film I saw was so diced and truncated that I can’t even imagine what the extra footage added back in could do to save it. But I do understand that Wong Kar Wai is an absolute artist and legend, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
The Grandmaster tells us the story of Ip Man, a historical figure who has transcended into legend as the real life master of Bruce Lee. Man’s life was storied enough to become the compelling subject of quite a few feature films. Donnie Yen stars as Ip Man in two recent films that I feel are vastly superior to The Grandmaster. There are also some less prestigious Ip Man films that have either already been made or are on their way to American audiences on home video as well. I, like many fans, just assumed that The Grandmaster was going to be the definitive film version of Master Ip Man’s story.
Here Ip Man is played by Chinese mega star Tony Leung, and elegantly so. Leung brings grace, humility, and humor to this great man of martial arts. He tells us that the first forty years of Man’s life were his “spring”; wealth allowed him to pursue nothing but his passion: Wing Chun martial arts. But soon China would fall into a brutal war with Japan in the 1930s and poverty runs rampant. This becomes the “winter” of Ip Man’s life and forces him to travel to Hong Kong away from his family to make what money he can, eventually becoming a fabled martial arts teacher.
Ip Man’s greatest true-life legacy beyond simply mentoring Bruce Lee is that he popularized the Wing Chun style of martial arts and brought his teachings to an international audience. He truly is The Grandmaster when it comes to the sheer number of followers who have taken to martial arts as a direct result of his work and teaching. But The Grandmaster doesn’t really focus on that beyond a few title cards and montages at the end telling us exactly how we are supposed to feel about Ip Man’s legacy.
No, The Grandmaster is an operatic and semi-tragic love story between Leung’s Man and Ziyi Zhang’s Gong Er, the daughter of Northern China’s Grandmaster who bestows his blessing on Ip Man before the war overtakes China. There is plenty of melodrama and angst in The Grandmaster, but there is very little else going on to engage us.
We’re thrown into the film early on with a massive fight sequence that offers no context for investment. A steady stream of title cards, on screen text, and exposition try their best to ground us in the film and identify who our main characters are. But the problem is that while I was able to understand who everyone was and what they were doing… I was never convinced to care about it or find much depth in their actions.
Ziyi Zhang’s character plays the awesomely tough daughter of a martial arts master who takes it upon herself to take the honor of her house back from a disciple who has smeared her family’s name in the mud. She is not a typical damsel in distress, which I always appreciate at this point. As a matter of fact, the very best sequence of the film is a train station fight sequence between Gong and said disciple, and it doesn’t even involve Ip Man!
If I’m being even more brutally honest, I don’t even think the film looked all that beautiful, which is just a base expectation of a sweeping martial arts epic directed by Wong Kar Wai. There is some incredible imagery. No denying. And I take no pleasure whatsoever in saying this, but the frequent use of slow motion looked choppy and digital in every single instance. This MUST have been an aesthetic decision or visual effect that was intentional. But I love fluid, clear, crisp slow motion work and can’t get excited about the way the slow motion in this film looked. I also genuinely think the audio of the film was messed up somehow in the screening I attended as often Leung’s voiceovers sounded just fine, and other times they sounded tinny or almost metallic and distant. I am certain this was some kind of error and not a part of the intended film, but I also can’t ignore that the minor audio issues felt kind of like a “when it rains it pours” situation and upset me much more than it would have if I was heavily invested in the film.
Someday, I hope to see the international cut of The Grandmaster and wash away the memory of this American cut. Nothing would make me happier. But will I ever feel invested in these characters as told in this screenplay? Will they be able to add a second dimension to otherwise one dimensional characters? Will Wong Kar Wai be able to inject any kind of subtext or meaning beyond aching love and pretty fight scenes? Will the action sequences become successful because I’m now invested in the characters and feeling things that a title card isn’t telling me I’m supposed to feel? I can only hope.
And I’m Out.