The Grandmaster

一代宗师

Hong Kong/China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D (China re-release only), 130 mins.

Director: Wang Jiawei 王家卫 [Wong Kar-wai].

Rating: 7/10.

Sumptuously shot saga of competing martial artists is flawed by a weak overall structure.

STORY

Foshan, Guangdong province, southern China, 1936. Ye Wen (Liang Chaowei), aka Ip Man in Cantonese, is a revered grandmaster of the Yong Chun, aka Wing Chun, school of martial arts, which he’s studied since the age of seven after being inducted as a pupil of Master Chen Huashun (Yuan Heping). He has two children and a dutiful wife, Zhang Yongcheng (Song Hye-gyo), descended from a Qing foreign affairs minister, with whom he likes to visit the Golden Pavilion to hear music together. By 1936, as the country is facing turmoil, the Golden Pavilion has become a meeting-ground for notables and heroes. At a gathering organised by Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang), a grandmaster from Northeast China (then Japanese-occupied Manchuria) who wants to retire after one last fight and would like to unite the northern and southern styles of martial arts, a fight breaks out between the two sides, exacerbated by Gong Yutian’s protege Ma San (Zhang Jin). Gong Yutian afterwards scolds Ma San for being hotheaded; but when the former meets an old friend from the northeast, Ding Lianshan (Zhao Benshan), who moved south 30 years ago after an incident, it turns out that Gong Yutian also has a history of impulsiveness. Gong Yutian has brought along his 20-year-old daughter, Gong Ruomei, aka Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), who does not want to see her father lose his record of never being beaten. After sparring with four fighters skilled in the northern Baguazhang and Xingyiquan styles, Ye Wen takes on Gong Yutian in a stylised encounter, from which the latter retires gracefully. Dissatisfied with the outcome, Gong Ruomei invites Ye Wen to a banquet at the pavilion and faces off against him with her Sixty-Four Hands style. After a spark is lit between them, they part, but promise to meet again. In October 1938, Foshan falls to the Japanese and Ye Wen’s world is destroyed. Meanwhile, on a train in the north, Gong Ruomei impulsively saves a wounded man, nicknamed Yi Xian Tian (Zhang Zhen), from capture by Japanese troops. By 1940, Ma San has sided with the Japanese. Shattered, Gong Yutian disinherits him but dies as a result. Gong Ruomei returns home and, against the wishes of both her late father and the clan’s elders, vows vengeance. However, one clan member, the faithful Jiang (Shang Tielong), accompanies her on her quest for Ma San. By 1950, Ye Wen has arrived in Hong Kong, where he has opened a modest martial arts school. He visits Gong Ruomei, who has also moved to the city. Still unmarried, and devoted to her father’s memory, she is tired, and has neither practised martial arts in years nor passed on her skills to any pupils. Two years later, Yi Xian Tian opens the White Rose Barber Shop in Hong Kong, and introduces the Bajiquan style to the territory.

REVIEW

The 10th feature by Wang Jiawei 王家卫 [Wong Kar-wai], and his first in five years, The Grandmaster 一代宗师 is a magnificent torso of a potentially much greater movie. Some four years in the making (on and off), and more than a decade in the planning, it’s a sumptuous looking artifact – into which Wang has poured his lifelong love of martial arts novels and his trademark melancholia for things lost and unregainable – that is wondrous to behold but is missing so many key elements that it’s impossible to fully appreciate. It may be another long wait before the movie, reportedly with enough shot material for a four-hour cut, finally reveals itself in a Grandmaster Redux.

As it stands in its Hong Kong and China premiere version, The Grandmaster has a great first 70 minutes (set during 1936-40 in war-torn China) but rapidly starts losing focus and coherence during the remaining hour (set, apart from a flashback, in 1950s Hong Kong). Most suprisingly, the title character of Ye Wen – better known under his Cantonese name, Ip Man, and as the later teacher of Li Xiaolong 李小龙 [Bruce Lee] – does not emerge as the driving force of the whole movie. He certainly dominates the first half-hour or so, and is never absent for long thereafter, but plenty of other characters also vie for the viewer’s attention, including the northern Master Gong (powerfully played by Wang Qingxiang 王庆祥) and especially his daughter (Zhang Ziyi 章子怡, in the film’s standout performance).

During the final half-hour, the film struggles to re-assert Ye Wen as the main character; but long before that, it’s already become clear that the movie is mistitled in English. As a story that essentially revolves around the divisions between China’s north and south, and the competitiveness between those representing the different styles of martial arts, it would have been better called The Grandmasters. (The Chinese title, which means roughly the same, can be read as either singular or plural.)

Among other roles that also vie for attention, the most curious is the one played by Taiwan actor Zhang Zhen 张震who, though third billed, is in only three sequences totalling less than 10 minutes of screen time. It’s not uncommon for Wang Jiawei to dramatically reduce roles during postproduction: that of Zhang Manyu 张曼玉[Maggie Cheung] in 2046 (2004) is a classic example. However, Zhang Zhen’s mistily defined character – who reportedly has a love affair with Zhang Ziyi’s in the full version – would have been better left completely out, as his three appearances make no sense at all. It’s a double pity, as, from the brief evidence, his role looks like one of the more interesting and is played with considerable intensity, generating instant screen chemistry with Zhang Ziyi in their one surviving scene together.

Equally mysterious is the role played by the fourth-billed star, Mainland comedian Zhao Benshan 赵本山, a semi-ghostly figure from an unexplained incident in Master Gong’s past. Zhao’s two scenes are memorable for their allusive dialogue and the actor’s drily humorous performance, but otherwise remain puzzling cameos.

Zhao’s scenes are typical of much of the movie’s dialogue, which is written in a consciously elevated way (as in a costume martial arts novel), packed with puns and proverbial expressions, and entirely typical of its Mainland authors, playwright Zou Jingzhi 邹静之 and polymath Xu Haofeng 徐浩峰. The latter, a martial arts practitioner/novelist, has already made two movies (The Sword Identity 倭寇的踪迹, 2011; Judge Archer 箭士柳白猿, 2012) which tried to re-define the genre but fell prey to their own intellectual cleverness and Xu’s inexperience as a film-maker. In the hands of a professional director like Wang, his writing sings better; but there’s still a recurring feeling throughout The Grandmaster that the script is way ahead of the audience.

Even more than Ashes of Time 东邪西毒(1994), which was based on well-known novels by martial arts writer Jin Yong 金庸, the script is the densest and most “literary” of all Wang’s films, chewing over abstract values like family, honour, ethics, loyalty, piety and personal legacy, plus the difference between “outer” face and “inner” virtues. From its opening scene, the script aims for memorable lines – “Kung-fu: two words. One horizontal, one vertical”, “Why does a sword sit in a scabbard? Not to kill but to hide”, “For martial artists, life and death are easy, parting is hard” – some of which are resonant, others more banal. What is most lacking is a sense of genuine emotion that can transmit itself to an average audience.

Part of that is due to the writing, part to the film’s visual style getting in the way of the characters, and part to the performance of Hong Kong’s Liang Chaowei 梁朝伟 [Tony Leung Chiu-wai] as Ye Wen. In many of his movies, including those with Wang, Liang’s trademark insouciance can be a real benefit; here, wearing an omniscient smile along with a dapper white Panama hat, his Ye Wen, who ages not one iota across two decades, seems a lightweight in what should be his own movie. Only once, in a war montage, does he briefly show real emotion; most of the time, he’s more of a bystander to much richer, deeper personalities. Chief among these, and dominating the film, is Zhang Ziyi’s highly focused portrayal of Master Gong’s daughter, her finest performance since, well, her last film with Wang (2046), and one which isn’t overwhelmed by the visual design. The only other significant female role is Ye Wen’s dutiful wife, played elegantly but transiently by South Korean TV actress Song Hye-gyo 송혜교 | 宋慧乔(Hwang Jin Yi 황진이, 2007).

Wang’s films have always been 50% the property of their d.p., and in France’s Philippe Le Sourd (who shot Wang’s 2007 short, There’s Only One Sun, sponsored by Philips) he’s found another gifted visual artist in the steps of previous collaborators Christopher Doyle 杜可风 and Darius Khondji, backed by equally fine 2nd unit work from China’s Song Xiaofei 宋晓飞(Cow 斗牛, 2009; Design of Death 杀生, 2012; Lost in Thailand 人再囧途之泰囧, 2012). Shot largely on sets and in interiors, and 80% at night, the film creates an abstract China and Hong Kong that recalls In the Mood for Love 花样年华(2000) and 2046, with prowling camerawork that’s almost an eavesdropper on its characters and individual sequences that look more like elaborated commercials or musicvideos than parts of a feature film.

The early Foshan scenes, bathed in warm amber tones, have a highly decorated, claustrophobic feel similar to The Puppetmaster 戏梦人生 (1993) and Flowers of Shanghai 海上花 (1998) by Taiwan’s Hou Xiaoxian 侯孝贤, while later ones, such as a funeral procession in blinding white snow or a confrontation in a railway station, evoke the extreme cold of wintry Northeast China. In contrast to both these extremes, two of the biggest action setpieces (featuring Liang and Vietnam-born MMA star Lê Cung, and Zhang Zhen vs. a mob) are set in splashy, pouring rain. Initially, it looks as if the film’s look is to underscore hints in the dialogue of “seasons” in Ye Wen’s life, but after “spring” and “winter” this idea peters out.

For a film that is so much about fighting styles, the action, masterminded by veteran Yuan Heping 袁和平, is neither especially realistic nor particularly centred on techniques, more visually-driven in a regular Hong Kong way, with fast cutting and mobile camerawork. It’s still gripping stuff and, particularly in Zhang Ziyi’s setpieces, both balletic and sensual. Production design, by the Hong Kong powerhouse team of Zhang Shuping 张叔平  [William Chang], Qiu Weiming 邱伟明 [Alfred Yau] and Ou Dingping 区丁平[Tony Au], is equally aces. However, anyone who wants a real portrait of Ye Wen, with a true emphasis on the martial arts, is referred to the terrific Zhen Zidan 甄子丹 [Donnie Yen] vehicles, Ip Man 叶问 (2008) and Ip Man 2 叶问2 (2010), both directed by Hong Kong’s Ye Weixin 叶伟信 [Wilson Yip], as well as to the lively unofficial prequel, The Legend Is Born: Ip Man 叶问前传 (2010) by Qiu Litao 邱礼涛 [Herman Yau].

*

The “international” version, premiered on 7 Feb 2013 as the Berlin Film Festival’s opening movie, runs seven minutes shorter, with several deletions and additions plus minor structural changes that don’t, on balance, significantly improve the film. The most notable deletion is a beautifully written, irreal scene (already famous for its theatrical lighting of a cigarette) in which Zhao Benshan’s character meets Liang Chaowei’s in Hong Kong, establishing a connection between the two and questioning the former’s basic attitudes towards martial arts. Equally sad is the loss of the final scene by Mainland veteran Shang Tielong 尚铁龙 in which he gives Liang’s character a box with some of Zhang Ziyi’s hair inside. Other deletions are unimportant trims, plus a shorter version of Ye Wen’s induction as a child that has now been moved from the front to the back of the movie.

Of the additions, Zhang Zhen’s character is given one short, wordless extra scene — prior to his meeting with his former KMT colleagues — in which he and Zhang Ziyi’s character turn up separately in a Hong Kong restaurant, but he still remains a shadowy figure and dramatically redundant to the film as its stands at present. The strongest addition is a much longer version of Zhang Ziyi’s flashback memories of her youth, strengthening the martial-arts relationship between her and her father.

The most jolting addition is a rapidly cut, rough-and-tumble fight sequence spliced into the middle of the end credits, with a quote (in English only) from Li Xiaolong [Bruce Lee], which not only destroys the film’s melancholic finish but looks like a clumsy attempt to attract international audiences with a mention of the late superstar’s name. Until Wang Jiawei produces a Redux version of, say, around three hours, The Grandmaster will still remain a magnificent torso of a potentially much greater movie.

[Wang subsequently prepared two more versions: a more linear, 108-minute one for release in the US in Aug 2013, and a 111-minute 3-D version for a release in China on 8 Jan 2015.]

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio, Film & Television (CN), Jet Tone Film (HK), Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK), in association with Xi’an Sil-Metropole Film Distribution, Shanghai Film Group, SARFT Satellite Movie Channel Production Centre, Huaxia Film Distribution, Yiyi International Film & TV Culture Communication (Beijing), Beijing BlueFocus Brand Management Consultancy, Mei Ah Film Production, Shenzhen Times China Media Film & TV Investment, Beijing Sheng Tang Times Culture Communication, Guangdong Elegance Culture Communication, Bona Film Group, China Film. Produced by Jet Tone Film (HK), Sil-Metropole Organisation (HK).

Script: Zou Jingzhi, Xu Haofeng, Wang Jiawei [Wong Kar-wai]. Original story: Wang Jiawei [Wong Kar-wai]. Photography: Philippe Le Sourd. Editing: Zhang Shuping [William Chang]. Music: Umebayashi Shigeru. Production design: Zhang Shuping [William Chang], Qiu Weiming [Alfred Yau]. Art direction: Ou Dingping [Tony Au]. Costume design: Zhang Shuping [William Chang]. Sound: Chen Guang, Robert McKenzie. Action: Yuan Heping. Visual effects: Isabelle Perin-Leduc. Second unit photography: Song Xiaofei.

Cast: Liang Chaowei [Tony Leung Chiu-wai] (Ye Wen/Ip Man), Zhang Ziyi (Gong Ruomei/Gong Er), Zhang Zhen (Yi Xian Tian/Razor), Song Hye-gyo (Zhang Yongcheng, Ye Wen’s wife), Wang Qingxiang (Gong Yutian, Gong Er’s father), Zhang Jin (Ma San), Lê Cung (Tie Wa Qi), Yuan Heping [Yuen Woo-ping] (Chen Huashun, young Ip Man’s master), Liu Jiayong [Lau Kar-yung] (Tie Qiao Yong), Zeng Zhaoer (The Dwarf), Lu Haipeng (Uncle Deng), Liu Xun (Rui), Xu Jinjiang (Xiong), Wu Tingye [Berg Ng] (Shou), Zhao Benshan (Ding Lianshan, the “ghost of Kwantung”), Xiaoshenyang (San Jiang Shui), Shang Tielong (Jiang, Gong Er’s retainer), Luo Mang (Black Faced Spirit), Wu Yunfei (clan member), Wang Mancheng (Elder Eight, Gong clan), Jin Shijie (Elder Five, Gong clan), Zhou Xiaofei (Sister Three), Hong Agu (Zhao Xintong), Zhang Zhiling [Julian Cheung], Wang Jue, Liang Xiaoling.

Release: China, 8 Jan 2013; Hong Kong, 10 Jan 2013; China, 8 Jan 2015 (3-D version).

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 28 Jan 2013, and updated on 7 Feb 2013.)