The Grandmaster

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. (23/06/2013)

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. (05/07/2013)

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". (20/04/2013)

Awesome artsy action! It's a shame that the film is only 130 minutes long, has a slow pace and for me a pretty uninteresting plot, but the visuals and fights are absolutely breathtaking and flawless. Unbelievable cinematography, a beautiful setting, a perfect capture of details, amazing choreography, well, formally, the absolute top of the genre, but content-wise, it missed me, too bad. 75% (16/05/2014)

It’s visually beautiful, the battles here are interesting, and I think the film stays quite close to reality, although it stylizes everything. This is a film that those who appreciate Asian culture and love martial arts movies will enjoy the most. This is really about art, and it is presented as such. Beautiful fights, but not as spontaneous or chaotic. Above all, it was about visual impressions and whether you appreciate the depth found in the life of someone who practices martial arts. (19/05/2014)