英闻天下——158 Movie Review: "The Grandmaster"

 　　"The Grandmaster" is perhaps the most anticipated yet the most disappointing movie that has reached Chinese cinemas of late. Director Wang Jiawei is said to have spent eight years on it, yet the result appears to be no better than a rushed-out product.

 
　　The biggest problem is the plot. Despite the title, Wang tries to tell the story of several martial 1 arts masters, and that is a challenge.
 
　　Wing Chun master Ip Man from Foshan wins a duel 2 with grandmaster Gong Yutian, and is later challenged by the grandmaster's daughter Gong Er. During the fight, the young man and woman develop a special type of intimacy 3, but nothing comes to pass.
 
　　After that, Ip Man surrenders the screen time to Gong Er, who dominates the latter part of the story with her plan to assassinate 4 her father's ex-protege and murderer. Years later, Ip and Gong meet again, but just as they practice different martial arts styles, they've followed totally different tracks in their lives.
 
　　It would have been a presentable movie if our dear director had contented 5 himself with perfecting this beautifully simple story. But our auteur prefers doing things his way, and hard way that is. Apart from the Ip and Gong storyline, Wang seems to have planned for at least two more storylines, and set the movie around the 1940s.
 
　　What he has in mind is a grand panorama 6 about kung fu masters at a very tumultuous time in Chinese history. He may actually have filmed all that is needed to finish the task, enough to make it run for four hours, but somehow he thinks he could edit out a few parts and make it into two hours and still get away with it. Well, he thought wrong.
 
　　The other two narratives 7 are practically removed from the plot, but the major characters are allowed to show their faces only for a few minutes. It makes no sense for the movie, and it is hugely unfair for the actors, because the director, who claims to be extremely meticulous 8 about film-making, sent the actors to actually learn kung fu from scratch. In fact, there is one actor Zhang Zhen who learned it so well that he won martial arts competitions, yet he is on screen for no more than 5 minutes.
 
　　The bad editing is exacerbated 9 by the sound track. Wang seems to have quite an appetite for violins and cellos 10, very emotional but quite incessant 11, and the result is a rather downbeat atmosphere with no pace in general.
 
　　And I don't feel good about the excessive use of voiceovers and that is iconic Wang Jiawei style. Many fans are mesmerized 12 by those seemingly wise or insightful or emotional remarks inserted in between scenes, but I believe a director's best tool should be the camera. If you can't express yourself with the camera, you might as well give it up and try your luck with radio shows.
 
　　So on a scale from one to 10, I give "The Grandmaster" a five.