Patrick Ogle
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The Grandmaster Has Beautiful Cinematography And Fight Scenes But Also A Few Warts

9/2/2013

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The Grandmaster has a number of things to recommend it; it is a beautiful looking film from beginning to end and the fight choreography is fantastic. If you have just those two in a martial arts movie you are usually far ahead of the game.

Unfortunately this is as much historical period piece as it is martial arts film. In this regard The Grandmaster shows a few warts. None of these blemishes ruin the film, they generally do not even slow it down, but they are there nonetheless.

The film tells the story of Ip Man, who is credited with bringing kung fu to the world. But that is far from the focus of the film. Indeed it is difficult to discern much of a focus. But somehow this lack of focus sort of works.

The film starts with, Gong Yutian, a grandmaster of Northern China announcing he will retire. There is a division between northern and southern kung fu schools that is explained in passing. Gong comes south and it is determined Ip Man will meet the grandmaster in a fight (which turns out to be different than you might imagine). In besting a grandmaster you become heir to He meets Master Gong's daughter, Gong Ep, during these proceedings.

The story, which is fairly thin, revolves around the various kung fu schools, Ip Man's personal life, the Japanese invasion of China and ultimately the grandmaster's move to Hong Kong. The Grandmaster is a sketch of a time, a culture (not Chinese but kung fu culture), a love story and a biography but it does not delve too deeply into any of these worlds. It provides clues, parables and a sense of an "era gone by". It is a fantasy since it is likely the era it shows never existed.

The plot here is secondary to the action--and it is not always kung fu fighting. It is sometimes romantic entanglement. But usually it is disconnected fights and challenges. Yet these fights are not pointless but individual parables that move the story forward (albeit in fits and starts). The movie does not move in a typical narrative and jumps long periods of time. It is ot a typical bio-pic. If you expect to learn anything about Ip Man you will be disappointed. But then it may be the thing that inspires you to learn more about him. How often does a bio-pic tell the whole or even the real story of a person?

The acting is stylized but solid. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, always reliable, is stoic in the lead role and the lovely Ziyi Zhang appears as Gong Er and is given the most chance to emote and show emotion in the film--her character seeks love, vengeance and honor with intensity. She is given more opportunity to act, to emote than anyone else in the film.

The film is being marketed as an action film or a kung fu film and it is a bit more than that. The marketing also uses "Bruce Lee" as a lure; this film has almost nothing to do with Bruce Lee.  Go into this with no expectations and you will take something from it. Go in expecting The Raid: Redemption and you will be perplexed.
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Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame, Kung Fu Works On Wildlife Too

9/30/2011

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I meant to write something about Moneyball. Not a review but more a review of reviews on how sometimes you see a movie you think is really good but other people (critics or not) go CRAZY about it. You don’t want to disagree, having LIKED the movie, but you feel like while the movie was good it just wasn’t THAT good.

In my head I refer to this as “The King’s Speech Syndrome” but on to more important matters, specifically the film Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. This Chinese Mystery/Kung Fu/Fantasy/Period piece has everything you could want in an action film. The film has an albino, a sort of evil empress, a really cute palace official, a wise cracking detective who can kick butt and a fight wherein the hero goes up against several talking deer.

One would think that deer capable of speech and massively outweighing a human would be able to best him but he does have a special mace as a weapon. It is sort of magical.

At this point you REALLY want to see this move or REALLY do not. That is fair enough. This is an old school Kung Fu type movie, excepting that there is a lot of CGI and camera trickery going on. The really old school films didn’t do that (mostly due to the lack of a budget).  I write “kung fu type” because it is also one of those vaguely mythical history films. There is a lesson in it for your average Chinese viewer that the party is not going to be annoyed with at all. But it is also something that isn’t going to annoy a Western audience either—they likely won’t even notice this.


Walking into the theater do not expect Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Hero. This is not of the caliber of those films. If you go, refrain from scoffing, as the people behind me did. I wondered what sort of movie they thought they were going to see.  Raise the Red Lantern maybe? The ads for this could not be CLEARER as to what this movie was going to be.

So shut up and save your sighs for after the movie when you can talk about jazz and tilt your beret “just so.”  Is this movie beyond criticism? Hell no but for what it is intended to be? It is executed quite well. The plot is pretty silly and simple, the dialog—well who knows? I speak no dialect of Chinese but the translation is fairly goofy in parts.

This calls to mind something about the acting. It reminded me of soap opera actors and how those actors are frequently VERY good at their jobs. If you can even say the drivel that makes up the plot you have to be a good actor. Likewise, I think, in highly stylized films like this. The actors who are not good at their jobs just mug and swagger. In this film they mostly give it the old college try and pull it off—within the confines of the plot and this is not Shakespeare.

One rule is often that the amount of actual Kung Fu is inversely proportional to the skill of the actors.  If they cannot act? They better be able to fight. This film doesn’t have wall to wall fights but it does have four or five great action sequences which are well choreographed and shot. The fight sequences were choreographed by Sammo Hung (who needs no introduction to Kung Fu aficionados and the rest of you can Google him). Director Tsui Hark never, NEVER, lets the film drag or get bogged down in “plot.” They use devices from voiceover to titles to tell the audience any details that might lead to a boring conversation—and that is as it should be in a film like this.

We don’t want talk, we want guys fighting deer!

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    I don't think of these as "reviews." they may seem like it sometime but they are more just...impressions.

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