Beautiful in look and production values, "The Grandmaster" is a tragic waste of opportunity.
Think of "The Last Emperor," a dramatic epic of Chinese history, and you get an idea of what it might have been.
Think of a routine kung fu action movie with hasty, thrown-together editing to hide real technique, and you get what it actually is.
The film purports to be a biography of the legendary martial-arts master Ip Man, whose life spans the tumultuous era that followed the fall of China's last dynasty.
It was a time of chaos, division and war that was also the golden age of Chinese martial arts. The drama is all there, but routine fight scenes start taking center screen. We suspect the worst early on when a silly (there is no other word) fight scene interrupts the narrative. The viewer can't tell which are the good guys and which are the bad guys. An impressive set is destroyed, but so is our hope for the film. The die is cast.
Any effort at subsequent drama is interrupted by one of these fight scenes. Those seeking history or drama are eventually beaten, socked and pummeled into submission - mentally, thankfully, not physically.
It is surprising that this was directed by Kar Wai Wong, who is known as an international master of moody romance that emphasizes yearning and melancholy more than action. One strongly suspects that American importers got their hands on this film and re-edited it for action. That's only suspicion, but the resulting product is mind-boggling in its bland emptiness.
Tony Leung Chiu Wai is assigned the role of Ip Man, but the history is a muddle that never finds a center. Ip Man went on to become the trainer of martial arts star Bruce Lee, but this film never goes that far in time. Maybe a sequel is planned.
Wing Chun is the announced martial arts style, but we miss here even the close-up, unedited style that graces Jackie Chan movies. We get close-ups of hastily jerky moves that are so truncated that we miss what might have been balletic style. There is editing here, and editing has never been the friend of kung fu movies.
Still, this is a great-looking movie.
We get gorgeous photography, misty and magical sets, wonderful costumes and an occasional crowd scene that doesn't look as if it came out of computers. But we are looking for fight scenes on the level of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The problem may be that "Tiger" was centered in fantasy. A biography doesn't have that luxury.
Since 2008, Ip Man has been the subject of no fewer than four films. We are still looking for one that will capture the time and chaos of the world in which he lived and, perhaps, something of the character and nature of the man itself. Although "Grandmaster" had great promise, it is not the one.
This is just another kung fu movie dressed up in epic clothes.
Mal Vincent, 757-446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com
"THE GRANDMASTER"
Cast Benshan Zhao, Chen Chang, Cung Le, Hye-kyo Song, Jin Zhang, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Ziyi Zhang
Director and writer Kar Wai Wong
MPAA rating PG-13 (cartoonish action)
Mal's rating