On the most recent Sight & Sound Critics Poll in 2012, Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love” was voted the 24th best movie of all time, the highest of all films from this century. “In the Mood for Love” is a lush tone poem, bursting with color and passion in moody, emotive style.
In broadening his palette to a period piece martial arts studio film, it would be easy for a stylist such as Wong to fall into the same trap as countless other directors who got messy once allowed to paint on a bigger canvas.
“The Grandmaster” however immediately stands out from the crowd. Wong’s stylization breaks from the modern Hollywood tradition and achieves ethereal tones just seeping with emotion in all its slow motion, camera twirls, hazy filters and silvery gray undertones. Wong’s film is a sly, tense, mysterious and immense work of art that just barely keeps from buckling under its own weight.
“The Grandmaster” is the biopic of the Ip Man (Tony Leung), a true-to-life martial arts master from Southern China who fought during World War II, traveled to Hong Kong in the ‘50s and became a teacher responsible for the training of Bruce Lee. Early portions of the film show him training for a fight with a kung fu rival to the North named Ma Sang (Jin Zhang). He’s the heir to the Gong family lineage of fighting styles, but the rightful heir Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang) seeks retribution and is the only true warrior who rivals Ip Man’s skills. Continue reading “The Grandmaster”