Reportedly three years in the making and more than 10 years in gestation, The Grandmaster arrives in local theaters today. Directed by Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai, the film proves to be a refined work of cinematography that depicts the life of Ip Man (葉問), the wing chun (詠春) master who famously trained Bruce Lee (李小龍).
Though the kung-fu epic is narratively straightforward compared to the director’s previous work, audiences should not expect a biography adhering to genre conventions. True to Wong’s unique sensibilities and style, themes of love, loss and the passage of time permeate the film as it pays homage to the martial arts tradition and its masters.
Set in the early 1900s when modern China is in its infancy, the story begins with Ip’s (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) childhood and later his domestic life as a gentleman of leisure in China’s southern city of Foshan. Through Ip’s eyes, Foshan is revealed as an affluent metropolis that is home to numerous martial-arts schools. At the center of the action lies the Golden Pavilion, a lavishly decorated brothel frequented by the region’s martial artists.
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros
It is here that northern master Gong Yutian, played by Chinese veteran Wang Qingxiang, challenges fighters from the south to a last duel before his retirement in the hope of finding a worthy successor. Gong returns north, satisfied, after engaging in a battle of wit with Ip.
The match, however, riles Gong’s daughter, Er (Zhang Ziyi), who cannot accept any imperfections in her father’s otherwise invincible reputation. Er challenges Ip to a follow-up fight, but only to find herself succumbing to the married man following their duel at the brothel.
The unspoken attraction between the two remains unrequited as the Sino-Japanese War erupts, devastating Ip’s family and livelihood. Meanwhile, the narrative focus shifts to Er. Learning of the death of her father after a confrontation with Gong’s protege Ma San (Zhang Jin, 張晉), Er returns to her hometown in Japanese-occupied northeastern China and vows to avenge her father’s death despite the great sacrifices she is required to make.
Photo courtesy of Warner Bros
Having drifted apart for more than a decade, Ip and Er eventually meet again and ponder their previous relationship and what has disappeared through the ravages of time.
Visually sumptuous and aided by a superlative crew, The Grandmaster dazzles with some of the most gorgeous realizations of martial arts on screen. In the hands of action director Yuen Woo-ping (袁和平), fight sequences are rendered with imagination and sophistication, allowing the characters to show off their respective martial-arts styles which are delivered through refined movements and governed by ritual.
Wong’s penchant for nuanced details is admirably realized by the cinematography of Philippe Le Sourd. Through Le Sourd’s lens, the vastness of China’s snowy north stands in contrast to the often moist, opulently painted south, reinforced by production designer William Chang’s (張叔平) ravishing sets.
As in the director’s previous work, the visuals are not merely something to marvel at but a vehicle to reflect deep emotions and suppressed feelings. One of the most memorably sensuous moments takes place at the Golden Pavilion where Ip and Er engage in a duel as if it is a delicate courtship. At the gilded, high-class brothel, the two sit on opposite sides of a long table, surrounded by courtesans in cheongsam. Played out against an Italian opera, the sequence unfolds as if portrayed in an oil painting, exuding a sense of mystery and desire.
While the film spans decades that include modern China’s turbulent history, the primary focus is always on the characters and how they struggle to cope with what the world has imposed on them. Among the glamorous cast, Zhang Ziyi stands at the center of attention by portraying her character, who experiences a series of tragic events, with emotional intensity. In comparison, Leung conjures up less charisma here partially because his Ip Man is rendered gentle, unassuming and with few distinct characteristics. The most obvious victim of the drastic reduction of a four-hour rough cut to the current 130-minute version, however, is Taiwan’s Chang Chen (張震). His character Razor, a master of the Bagua (八卦掌) school of martial arts, is confined to three scenes and has almost no connection to the rest of the story.
Oozing with the kind of longing and melancholy that defines Wong’s oeuvre, The Grandmaster beautifully grounds the recurrent themes of memory and the passage of time in the world of martial arts. As the characters utter introspective soliloquies and wander from the Chinese towns and cities to Hong Kong’s narrow alleys, the ancient world of martial arts has gradually fallen into oblivion along with its set of rules, decorum and philosophy. Its traces are only captured and frozen in the old photographs of Ip Man in the movie.
Although Wong reportedly spent three years visiting about 100 martial artists across the globe before making the film, he chose to portray his subject with a touch of tenderness. In their final meeting, Gong Er asks Ip to live life on her behalf as she doesn’t have a chance to do so. Ip survives, albeit alone, to tell the tale and continue to pass on the spirit of martial arts.
Every now and then, it’s nice to just point somewhere on a map and head out with no plan. In Taiwan, where convenience reigns, food options are plentiful and people are generally friendly and helpful, this type of trip is that much easier to pull off. One day last November, a spur-of-the-moment day hike in the hills of Chiayi County turned into a surprisingly memorable experience that impressed on me once again how fortunate we all are to call this island home. The scenery I walked through that day — a mix of forest and farms reaching up into the clouds
With one week left until election day, the drama is high in the race for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair. The race is still potentially wide open between the three frontrunners. The most accurate poll is done by Apollo Survey & Research Co (艾普羅民調公司), which was conducted a week and a half ago with two-thirds of the respondents party members, who are the only ones eligible to vote. For details on the candidates, check the Oct. 4 edition of this column, “A look at the KMT chair candidates” on page 12. The popular frontrunner was 56-year-old Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文)
“How China Threatens to Force Taiwan Into a Total Blackout” screamed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) headline last week, yet another of the endless clickbait examples of the energy threat via blockade that doesn’t exist. Since the headline is recycled, I will recycle the rebuttal: once industrial power demand collapses (there’s a blockade so trade is gone, remember?) “a handful of shops and factories could run for months on coal and renewables, as Ko Yun-ling (柯昀伶) and Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) pointed out in a piece at Taiwan Insight earlier this year.” Sadly, the existence of these facts will not stop the
Oct. 13 to Oct. 19 When ordered to resign from her teaching position in June 1928 due to her husband’s anti-colonial activities, Lin Shih-hao (林氏好) refused to back down. The next day, she still showed up at Tainan Second Preschool, where she was warned that she would be fired if she didn’t comply. Lin continued to ignore the orders and was eventually let go without severance — even losing her pay for that month. Rather than despairing, she found a non-government job and even joined her husband Lu Ping-ting’s (盧丙丁) non-violent resistance and labor rights movements. When the government’s 1931 crackdown
RSS