Sadly speaking, "The Grandmaster" does not get a grand score from me.
Before this film, 3 movies have been made about Ip Man, with the first two by Donnie Yen. Like it or not, first movers always have an advantage. The prequel of Ip Man - "A Legeng is Born - Ip Man" - did pretty well, featuring a Wing Chun practitioner Dennis To. But, in my opinion, all these 3 movies did not sufficiently capture aspects of the Man's life stories that many fans are looking for - his philosophy about Wing Chun, how he took up Wing Chun, and, of course, his mentor-ship of Bruce Lee.
"The Grandmaster", in my opinion, missed this golden opportunity to satisfy the thirst of martial arts fans on these aspects.
For one, I am surprised to see that the script chose to focus on something other than Wing Chun - the so-called "64 forms", a kind of martial art - and revolve around the relationship between Man and Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), with a rather strange majority of screen time placed on Er. In fact, I strongly suspected that the "Grandmaster" in the film is actually Gong Er and not Ip Man (and perhaps this film will be so successful in this respect that there will be another film on Gong Er?)
I believe audeince is in for the story behind Ip Man, Wing Chun and Bruce Lee, not "64 forms" or the fictitious Gong Er. It is clearly focus misplaced.
The fighting sequence is a major disappointment as well. Fighting sequence is barely 5 moves in total, with the camera zooming in on to the hands or legs and, which is my pet peeve, the overuse of slow motion and special effects that obscure the real beauty of the moves. I am not sure whether these effects are specially chosen to mask the fact that Tony Leung is not a martial artist, but applying these on veterans such as Zhang Ziyi - who has learn some martial arts before - is a waste of talents.
Taking a step back, I suspect that the producers and director seemed to want to break away from the proved formula of story-telling about Ip Man and Wing Chun, and took risk in the script and even cinematography. However, I see traces of Zhang Yimou in the technique, which I neither am opposed to nor strongly encouraged. However, I think the director OVERDID on the special and visual effects, because, in my opinion, he may have wanted every scene and frame to be visually stunning. While there are many scenes (including the special effects) that are indeed very captivating - e.g. those at the train station involving the duel of Gong Er and San - these effects quickly became a major muddling distraction for me, to an extent that I felt like the film has overrun in length in its appeal to audience.
I prefer a film that takes care of its basics well, before venturing into the visual/special effects (what I consider icing on the cake). In any story involving Ip Man, the basics should be the man, his family, his time and his Wing Chun.
Finally, the film applied another technique often seen in Zhang Yimou's films - the somewhat emotionally derived script with somewhat wooden expressions on its casts, with a hope to create an ambiance of mystery and helplessness (e.g. in a time that saw China fell into the hands of the Japanese during World War II). Personally, this technique is a waste of the acting talents of the likes of Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi.
"The Grandmaster" is clearly a focus misplaced.
I had higher hopes for anything Ip Man and Wing Chun.
Before this film, 3 movies have been made about Ip Man, with the first two by Donnie Yen. Like it or not, first movers always have an advantage. The prequel of Ip Man - "A Legeng is Born - Ip Man" - did pretty well, featuring a Wing Chun practitioner Dennis To. But, in my opinion, all these 3 movies did not sufficiently capture aspects of the Man's life stories that many fans are looking for - his philosophy about Wing Chun, how he took up Wing Chun, and, of course, his mentor-ship of Bruce Lee.
"The Grandmaster", in my opinion, missed this golden opportunity to satisfy the thirst of martial arts fans on these aspects.
For one, I am surprised to see that the script chose to focus on something other than Wing Chun - the so-called "64 forms", a kind of martial art - and revolve around the relationship between Man and Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), with a rather strange majority of screen time placed on Er. In fact, I strongly suspected that the "Grandmaster" in the film is actually Gong Er and not Ip Man (and perhaps this film will be so successful in this respect that there will be another film on Gong Er?)
I believe audeince is in for the story behind Ip Man, Wing Chun and Bruce Lee, not "64 forms" or the fictitious Gong Er. It is clearly focus misplaced.
The fighting sequence is a major disappointment as well. Fighting sequence is barely 5 moves in total, with the camera zooming in on to the hands or legs and, which is my pet peeve, the overuse of slow motion and special effects that obscure the real beauty of the moves. I am not sure whether these effects are specially chosen to mask the fact that Tony Leung is not a martial artist, but applying these on veterans such as Zhang Ziyi - who has learn some martial arts before - is a waste of talents.
Taking a step back, I suspect that the producers and director seemed to want to break away from the proved formula of story-telling about Ip Man and Wing Chun, and took risk in the script and even cinematography. However, I see traces of Zhang Yimou in the technique, which I neither am opposed to nor strongly encouraged. However, I think the director OVERDID on the special and visual effects, because, in my opinion, he may have wanted every scene and frame to be visually stunning. While there are many scenes (including the special effects) that are indeed very captivating - e.g. those at the train station involving the duel of Gong Er and San - these effects quickly became a major muddling distraction for me, to an extent that I felt like the film has overrun in length in its appeal to audience.
I prefer a film that takes care of its basics well, before venturing into the visual/special effects (what I consider icing on the cake). In any story involving Ip Man, the basics should be the man, his family, his time and his Wing Chun.
Finally, the film applied another technique often seen in Zhang Yimou's films - the somewhat emotionally derived script with somewhat wooden expressions on its casts, with a hope to create an ambiance of mystery and helplessness (e.g. in a time that saw China fell into the hands of the Japanese during World War II). Personally, this technique is a waste of the acting talents of the likes of Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi.
"The Grandmaster" is clearly a focus misplaced.
I had higher hopes for anything Ip Man and Wing Chun.