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TGM
09-14-2013, 09:23 AM
THE GRANDMASTER

Director: Wong Kar-wai

imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462900/?ref_=sr_2)

http://www.electric-shadows.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/poster-the-grandmaster.jpg

Ezee E
09-14-2013, 10:55 PM
Visually this is top-notch or Wong Kar-Wai, fully utilizing all his signature shots better then he ever has. Storywise, it meanders around, and is at its best when it focuses on the romance between Ip Man and Gong (Zhang Ziyi). That's saying something. The scene of the letters being written back and forth feel incredibly classical in movie storytelling, almost like a silent film. I loved that. However, there's simply too little of that, and the fights almost seem like a distraction.

I can't decide between Mixed and Con.... I think it weights more heavily towards con...

TGM
09-14-2013, 11:15 PM
I almost feel like everyone who talks about this movie needs to mention which version of it they saw. Or should we just assume everyone's talking about the American version unless otherwise stated?

Ezee E
09-15-2013, 01:04 AM
I saw it in theaters, so whatever that was.

baby doll
09-15-2013, 01:26 AM
I almost feel like everyone who talks about this movie needs to mention which version of it they saw. Or should we just assume everyone's talking about the American version unless otherwise stated?I've only seen the Chinese version so far, but I'll watch the other versions when I get a chance.

eternity
09-15-2013, 08:42 PM
A Wong Kar-Wai movie played mere miles from my home and I didn't go see it because Harvey Weinstein just had to fuck around with it, didn't he?

Qrazy
09-18-2013, 03:23 AM
This is a yay for me but just barely. The man still can't shoot action scenes. He lenses everything way too tightly. There aren't nearly enough establishing shots or just imagery that conveys a sense of space. The lighting is great but the film is about 70% close-ups and mids. Also it takes itself way, way too seriously and becomes a bore. I miss Fallen Angels era Wong when he'd insert some levity into the proceedings. He's at his worst when his characters are sitting face to face and reciting his middling dialogue.

Li Lili
09-18-2013, 09:32 PM
Well, I voted nay, because compared to his old movies, it's rather disppointed and lacks of freshness, you know something that used to sparkle in his old movies... Then I still gave a mixed rating as visually (and especially the work on the light) the film is fine.
I also saw it at the cinema when it came out.

dreamdead
12-21-2013, 08:38 PM
Found this one surprisingly enjoyable. It ruminates just as his other films do, and it is able to ground its narrative in the most specifically sociocultural of contexts, something that didn't feel to be central to his filmography until Happy Together. I think the material with letter writing actually works without extending itself since these characters continually sublimate any desire that they knowingly feel, so the refusal to return to that device is itself perfectly in keeping with them.

I found the action sequences to be rather vibrant, and the two battles with Gong Er were most impressive. And this one felt like Wong's most Malickian in the near-constancy of camera pans amidst each cut, so that motion (not going back) was always felt, in keeping with the narrative theme.

By the way, I watched the international cut, which is available from amazon...

ledfloyd
12-21-2013, 10:12 PM
By the way, I watched the international cut, which is available from amazon...
Good to know. The Weinstein cut was noticeably truncated.

baby doll
12-24-2013, 02:28 PM
The Weinstein cut was noticeably truncated.So is the Chinese cut. If there's a non-truncated version out there, it's probably like six hours long.

baby doll
12-24-2013, 02:30 PM
He lenses everything way too tightly. There aren't nearly enough establishing shots or just imagery that conveys a sense of space. The lighting is great but the film is about 70% close-ups and mids.I had the same exact problem with La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.

Izzy Black
12-25-2013, 07:56 PM
I had the same exact problem with La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.

lol

Izzy Black
12-25-2013, 08:03 PM
I saw the Chinese cut.

This film is close to perfect for me. I loved everything. I particularly like the way the narrative sprawls and meanders, as the Chinese cut is as more about a bygone era in Chinese history filtered through the personal tragedy of one particular woman (Gong Er). (And in this respect, I prefer the title The Grandmasters, but even with the international title, there's ambiguity. Who is The Grandmaster?). Her fight scene at the train station is one of the very best scenes of the year and a for me an instant classic in wuxia direction. Truly poetic, moving, and striking. I love Wong's unique approach to the genre, both in terms of narrative and action. A wonderful film with a rich, beautiful color palette.

ledfloyd
01-04-2014, 01:18 AM
Man, the Chinese cut is a much, much better film. A lot of the stuff concerning Gong Er that doesn't directly involve Ip Man was cut out of the US cut. As a result it feels much less substantive than the Chinese cut, which feels more like a Wong Kar-Wai film. This one is worthy of reckoning with, while the US cut often felt like a lark, or an experienced director having fun playing with Kung Fu.

Qrazy
01-04-2014, 06:18 AM
I had the same exact problem with La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc.

Not sure if you're kidding or not but I actually did think that would initially be a problem for me with The Passion. The thing is Dreyer's mids and close-ups are so well lit and so effortlessly acted that it works beautifully. The style suits the content which is focused on both the spiritual inner life and beauty of one and the malicious and twisted psychological intent of many others. With this one though the focus is on incredible atmospheric and acrobatic feats. Yimou and Lee recognized the importance of cutting out to those masterful establishing wides. Kar Wai has never fully cultivated his action direction though and still here he stays too close to the physicality and never gives the audience a chance to breathe.

Izzy Black
01-04-2014, 09:48 AM
Yes, but you also complained about the lack of wide shots in American Hustle. Where I disagree with you on both films is in the suggestion that this approach isn't functional. In Wong's case, the emphasis isn't on acrobatics and wire-work, but on establishing an almost smothering intimacy and physicality. The poetry is in gesture, the conversation between bodies in motion and intense longing faces in the frame. In a way, it's not really an "action" film, but I don't think it's any less a wuxia for that matter. I typically agree that space is important in a martial arts film, but I think Wong's approach beautifully complements his style and brings a fresh perspective to the genre. It didn't work for you, that's cool, but I'm glad he did it the way he did it.

In American Hustle, the lack of space is key. It wants to feel claustrophobic. We get this a lot in Russell's films. I'm also glad he shot the film the way he did, especially in those montage sequences. It's significant that both Wong and Russell rely on slow motion or slowed down action in many of the sequences, isolating temporal and spatial moments that almost poetically exist outside of the spatial continuity of the rest of the narrative.

Qrazy
01-04-2014, 05:53 PM
Yes, but you also complained about the lack of wide shots in American Hustle. Where I disagree with you on both films is in the suggestion that this approach isn't functional. In Wong's case, the emphasis isn't on acrobatics and wire-work, but on establishing an almost smothering intimacy and physicality. The poetry is in gesture, the conversation between bodies in motion and intense longing faces in the frame. In a way, it's not really an "action" film, but I don't think it's any less a wuxia for that matter. I typically agree that space is important in a martial arts film, but I think Wong's approach beautifully complements his style and brings a fresh perspective to the genre. It didn't work for you, that's cool, but I'm glad he did it the way he did it.

In American Hustle, the lack of space is key. It wants to feel claustrophobic. We get this a lot in Russell's films. I'm also glad he shot the film the way he did, especially in those montage sequences. It's significant that both Wong and Russell rely on slow motion or slowed down action in many of the sequences, isolating temporal and spatial moments that almost poetically exist outside of the spatial continuity of the rest of the narrative.

I think the approach can be functional such as The Passion and a handful of other films but I think the content rarely calls for that approach especially in a wuxia.

Tarkovsky could be described to use slow motion to isolate/spatial/poetic because he uses it sparingly. In these films Wong and Russell use it because it looks cool. And they aren't exactly blazing new trails in relation to the use of slow motion in wuxia or gangster/con films.

Wong succeeds in smothering but sans intimacy for me. He uses plenty of wides overall, the wides just feel too tight and he cuts away from them almost immediately or moves from a wide into a mid. He also uses fewer during fight scenes and he uses a ton of inserts. To me it displays a lack of confidence in his choreography as it also did in Ashes of Time (although when he did calm down to cut to a wide there they were very stunning). He never establishes his geography and then lets the characters interact with the space. Also there's very little in the way of the physicality you describe which to me implies a physical intensity and hard hits. This film is as much a dancey wuxia as any other. The fights aren't a go for broke Bourne-style.

Here's a grandmasters fight.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L2YcwrfdeA

It's all faces, hands and inserts of feet. To me this is incredibly boring. He could have cut out to shots showing the whole space and the movement within that space plenty of times and still cut in to their faces the moments when they were in close proximity to each other (to show their developing affection). For examples at 1:32 what is Zhang even aiming at when she gets her open palm fist punched away? I find that piece of choreography silly and pointless. At 1:52 we go from her being held by both arms to an insert of her feet and then her swatting his arm away with one hand. Again this is just lazy choreography and scene building. As are the cut aways to close-ups of people sitting and watching (1:58).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFH6lXJ6c4k

This scene in Crouching Tiger alternatively the choreography is always clear and in relation to that the emotional flow of the battle for these characters.

Izzy Black
01-05-2014, 05:12 AM
I think the approach can be functional such as The Passion and a handful of other films but I think the content rarely calls for that approach especially in a wuxia.

Tarkovsky could be described to use slow motion to isolate/spatial/poetic because he uses it sparingly. In these films Wong and Russell use it because it looks cool. And they aren't exactly blazing new trails in relation to the use of slow motion in wuxia or gangster/con films.

I don't think they're blazing new trails per se, but I think they both have distinctive approaches that aren't exactly the norm. This is rather refreshing on my end. It's also not about the slow motion taken alone, but rather the use of slow motion along with the tight framing. This suggests a greater emphasis on intimacy, bodily gestures, and physicality. I'll come back to this latter point.

As for using it sparingly, Tarkovsky does what he does, that's all fine and well, but Wong's approach is similar here as to what he's done outside of the wuxia genre. The delayed shutter speed, the close-ups, the incessant close ups and medium shots mark the style of a lot of his recent work, and he traded in his heavy use of wide-angle lenses for long-lenses to further amplify this effect. Romantic longing and loneliness is often brought out by visual representations of loneliness. The reliance on wide-angle lenses and long shots early in his career emphasized isolation by emphasizing space. For instance, Happy Together:

http://i.imgur.com/AOAVmOx.jpg?1

We get spatial solitude by locating individuals in the vast empty expanse of deep focus. This is taken to an extreme in Fallen Angels where the fish eye lens distortion of the wide-angle lens is combined with heavier emphasis on close-ups to create an almost disorienting sense of solitude, stretching reality so dramatically that objects in the background seem perpetually removed from the subjects that smother the frame in the foreground. (It's worth noting that Wong himself seems to think that the effect in Fallen Angels actually makes the characters seem distant from us, but I don't think it has quite that effect. I think it creates extreme distance, but there's also a sense in which they're very near the frame - and subjectively speaking - we're there with them, cut off from the rest of the world.)

http://i.imgur.com/OHFU4tc.jpg

Later in his career, he emphasized isolation through flattening space by collapsing the interiors, cluttering the frame, and developing an almost claustrophobic aesthetic. In both In the Mood for Love and 2046, Wong went back to normal lenses and the telephoto lens, but still relying heavily on medium shots and close-ups (Chungking Express used long lenses but relied more so on long shots than his later work). The aesthetic in these recent films isn't so much about isolation as it is intense longing. The technique is like a masterclass in melancholy. The warm color palette and claustrophobic framing create an almost suffocating intimacy (James Gray employs a similar technique toward different ends in The Yards and We Own the Night), but the lack of physical contact between the protagonists - even with such tight, affected framing - creates an overwhelming sense of longing. With My Blueberry Nights, I think nearly the whole film is shot on telephoto lenses. The effect is used multiply for ruminations on intimacy, longing, and isolation.

Now, let's turn to The Grandmaster, which I think is one of Wong's most visually stunning films. Perhaps most importantly, the technique emphasizes Wing Chun in non-generic ways. Wing Chun is an almost street boxing style of Kung Fu that relies heavily on quick, short punches/jabs, counters, and foot work. It's a propulsive or directional style of fighting that is always centered on a kind of straight line balance of the body. (This emphasis on linear symmetry is brought out by the film's motif about the "vertical" and "horizontal" actors of Kung Fu). It's not an acrobatic style of martial arts. This is the revolution in martial arts brought about by Bruce Lee as he introduces this style of Kung Fu to the world and how it went against the stereotypes, expectations, and assumptions of Kung Fu largely associated with the Shaw Brothers productions, the latter of which better informs the style of choreography we see in Yimou and Lee's film, which explains their technical choices and reliance on wire-work. We see other styles in The Grandmaster, but the highlight of this film is to emphasize the robust, physical style of Wing Chun and its highly sophisticated, but subtle method and technique. We consequently see great emphasis on hands and feet as a result (Gong Er, herself, master of "64 hands"), along with shots of faces in intense focus and concentration. The technique is a beautiful combination of intimate meditation, isolated bodily interaction, and technical skill. The way a foot will slide against a puddle of water in slow motion, meticulously finding its position to propel the torso for expertly landed blows to the opponent's mid section is captured ever so deliberately, as opposed to wide shots of back flipping, high-flying whirlwind kicks and hits from every angle. The emphasis isn't on space and acrobatics, but on sensual details, the textural specifics, slowed down and drawn out in isolated mediums and close-ups. Although Ip Man's fight with Gong Er is more balletic and elegant than physical, the emphasis in the sequence is again on intimacy - to underscore an intense dynamic and quietly erotic, warm-bodied chemistry between them that haunts them for the remainder of the film. By treating Wing Chun as a unique style of martial arts by shooting it with a specific, complementary style, Wong shows deep respect for wuxia as a genre and the complexity and depth of martial arts more generally. The camera also emphasizes bodily interaction with the environment in ways other wuxia films do not, an interaction that is as intimate between body and surface, like that of hand on concrete, as it is with bodies on bodies.

http://i.imgur.com/YGlYnLp.png

We can ask, what use is this shot? Surely you don't really see emphasis on these kinds of shots in a lot of traditional wuxia films, but this isn't a traditional wuxia film. The fight sequence between Gong Er and Ip Man isn't a fight sequence so much as it is a love sequence. The scene truly is about intimacy. These types of shots aren't there just because they "look cool." The fight in the rain might also look "cool," but it's much more about what it says about the martial artist and the environment in the same way the enveloping fog at the train station does in Gong Er's centerpiece fight or the the trudging through the snow in her quest for vengeance. It's important to note the lighting in these shots, the emphasis on faces or body parts in close-up is robust and evocative.

The technique here, then, is highly function. It isn't about "looking cool," but directly plays into Wong's overarching thematic interests and concerns. We might disagree about the thematic details or the specific effect, but you'll have to provide far more substantial argument to convince me that his technique isn't generally functional and that his technique in The Grandmaster isn't a reflection of the same development and deliberate focus seen elsewhere in his career.


Wong succeeds in smothering but sans intimacy for me. He uses plenty of wides overall, the wides just feel too tight and he cuts away from them almost immediately or moves from a wide into a mid. He also uses fewer during fight scenes and he uses a ton of inserts. To me it displays a lack of confidence in his choreography as it also did in Ashes of Time (although when he did calm down to cut to a wide there they were very stunning). He never establishes his geography and then lets the characters interact with the space. Also there's very little in the way of the physicality you describe which to me implies a physical intensity and hard hits. This film is as much a dancey wuxia as any other. The fights aren't a go for broke Bourne-style.

Here's a grandmasters fight.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L2YcwrfdeA

This is just beautiful! Thank you for posting this.

I totally disagree with you that Wong doesn't establish his geography. The entire film establishes geography, but it's not through sustaining wide-angle lens spatial awareness (even if we get establishing shots), but it's through the sensual touch of the body and environment. Which is to say, it doesn't emphasize the environment through shots of broad inclusive generalizations of space, but through analysis. An environment can imply a lack of space, or closed space, as much as it implies open space. In addition, emphasizing the environment can be done to say something general (like with an establishing wide-shot that indicates setting or location) or something specific (like the relationship between a hand and a door-knob, or a foot on the hardwood floor of a brothel). The environments are often tactile physical impediments, gliding surfaces, or complementary tools for its protagonists rather than vast open fields, deserts, and buildings you see in other wuxia's that emphasize free form acrobatics, which in a sense, downplays the environment as an active character in some cases. Just look at the way Gong Er's slipper slides across the wooden floor and the way it drowns out the rest of the sound on the soundtrack. It's an aesthetic of hands and feet, a martial arts of the same.


It's all faces, hands and inserts of feet. To me this is incredibly boring. He could have cut out to shots showing the whole space and the movement within that space plenty of times and still cut in to their faces the moments when they were in close proximity to each other (to show their developing affection). For examples at 1:32 what is Zhang even aiming at when she gets her open palm fist punched away? I find that piece of choreography silly and pointless. At 1:52 we go from her being held by both arms to an insert of her feet and then her swatting his arm away with one hand. Again this is just lazy choreography and scene building. As are the cut aways to close-ups of people sitting and watching (1:58).

The emphasis is all faces, hands, and feet, but I think the choreography is beautiful and everything seems very clear to me. As for 1:52, the editing is insignificantly discontinuous. I'm not at all bothered by the fact that one of her hands is free by the time the camera refocuses on her counter. I also see absolutely nothing pointless or lazy about the cut-aways to close-ups of people sitting and watching, as it establishes that there is an audience, such as the gasp of awe when they tumble down the flight of stairs.

As for 1:32, it seems clear to me that she's striking with her left hand as she sees Ip Man dodge to her left side away from her strike at him with her right hand. What we don't see is how he positions himself to dodge the blow because it shows her striking instead. The effect here is poetic as it goes to slow motion to show her arm almost bent by the tremor impact from his block. (This is one instance I mean by a more poetic emphasis on 'physicality,' but this fight scene isn't a representative example as it's more about intimacy). There's a clear sense to me in which his evasive movement is supposed to seem "unseen," given his stoic "looking away" glance as he outmaneuvers her with his block, but I don't think it's at all lost that she's aiming directly at him and he quickly repositioned.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFH6lXJ6c4k

This scene in Crouching Tiger alternatively the choreography is always clear and in relation to that the emotional flow of the battle for these characters.

This is one of my favorite fight scenes of all time and one of my favorite wuxias. I won't criticize or nitpick it, but I don't think your arguments against Wong's film are successful. I can understand if Wong's style of film isn't to your tastes, but I don't share your interpretative conclusions.

Qrazy
01-05-2014, 06:33 AM
So many words.

Izzy Black
01-05-2014, 07:12 AM
sry, wall of text TLDR disclaimer

Qrazy
01-05-2014, 07:48 AM
sry, wall of text TLDR disclaimer

I'll respond but might take me a few days.

Qrazy
01-05-2014, 07:46 PM
I don't think they're blazing new trails per se, but I think they both have distinctive approaches that aren't exactly the norm. This is rather refreshing on my end. It's also not about the slow motion taken alone, but rather the use of slow motion along with the tight framing. This suggests a greater emphasis on intimacy, bodily gestures, and physicality. I'll come back to this latter point.

As for using it sparingly, Tarkovsky does what he does, that's all fine and well, but Wong's approach is similar here as to what he's done outside of the wuxia genre. The delayed shutter speed, the close-ups, the incessant close ups and medium shots mark the style of a lot of his recent work, and he traded in his heavy use of wide-angle lenses for long-lenses to further amplify this effect. Romantic longing and loneliness is often brought out by visual representations of loneliness. The reliance on wide-angle lenses and long shots early in his career emphasized isolation by emphasizing space. For instance, Happy Together:

We get spatial solitude by locating individuals in the vast empty expanse of deep focus. This is taken to an extreme in Fallen Angels where the fish eye lens distortion of the wide-angle lens is combined with heavier emphasis on close-ups to create an almost disorienting sense of solitude, stretching reality so dramatically that objects in the background seem perpetually removed from the subjects that smother the frame in the foreground. (It's worth noting that Wong himself seems to think that the effect in Fallen Angels actually makes the characters seem distant from us, but I don't think it has quite that effect. I think it creates extreme distance, but there's also a sense in which they're very near the frame - and subjectively speaking - we're there with them, cut off from the rest of the world.)

Later in his career, he emphasized isolation through flattening space by collapsing the interiors, cluttering the frame, and developing an almost claustrophobic aesthetic. In both In the Mood for Love and 2046, Wong went back to normal lenses and the telephoto lens, but still relying heavily on medium shots and close-ups (Chungking Express used long lenses but relied more so on long shots than his later work). The aesthetic in these recent films isn't so much about isolation as it is intense longing. The technique is like a masterclass in melancholy. The warm color palette and claustrophobic framing create an almost suffocating intimacy (James Gray employs a similar technique toward different ends in The Yards and We Own the Night), but the lack of physical contact between the protagonists - even with such tight, affected framing - creates an overwhelming sense of longing. With My Blueberry Nights, I think nearly the whole film is shot on telephoto lenses. The effect is used multiply for ruminations on intimacy, longing, and isolation.

I'm aware of all of this, I've seen all his films (minus the My Blueberry Nights comments which I haven't seen). Although I've never liked his work with slow shutter speeds in this film or any other and especially in fight sequences.



Now, let's turn to The Grandmaster, which I think is one of Wong's most visually stunning films. Perhaps most importantly, the technique emphasizes Wing Chun in non-generic ways. Wing Chun is an almost street boxing style of Kung Fu that relies heavily on quick, short punches/jabs, counters, and foot work. It's a propulsive or directional style of fighting that is always centered on a kind of straight line balance of the body. (This emphasis on linear symmetry is brought out by the film's motif about the "vertical" and "horizontal" actors of Kung Fu). It's not an acrobatic style of martial arts. This is the revolution in martial arts brought about by Bruce Lee as he introduces this style of Kung Fu to the world and how it went against the stereotypes, expectations, and assumptions of Kung Fu largely associated with the Shaw Brothers productions, the latter of which better informs the style of choreography we see in Yimou and Lee's film, which explains their technical choices and reliance on wire-work. We see other styles in The Grandmaster, but the highlight of this film is to emphasize the robust, physical style of Wing Chun and its highly sophisticated, but subtle method and technique. We consequently see great emphasis on hands and feet as a result (Gong Er, herself, master of "64 hands"), along with shots of faces in intense focus and concentration. The technique is a beautiful combination of intimate meditation, isolated bodily interaction, and technical skill. The way a foot will slide against a puddle of water in slow motion, meticulously finding its position to propel the torso for expertly landed blows to the opponent's mid section is captured ever so deliberately, as opposed to wide shots of back flipping, high-flying whirlwind kicks and hits from every angle. The emphasis isn't on space and acrobatics, but on sensual details, the textural specifics, slowed down and drawn out in isolated mediums and close-ups. Although Ip Man's fight with Gong Er is more balletic and elegant than physical, the emphasis in the sequence is again on intimacy - to underscore an intense dynamic and quietly erotic, warm-bodied chemistry between them that haunts them for the remainder of the film. By treating Wing Chun as a unique style of martial arts by shooting it with a specific, complementary style, Wong shows deep respect for wuxia as a genre and the complexity and depth of martial arts more generally. The camera also emphasizes bodily interaction with the environment in ways other wuxia films do not, an interaction that is as intimate between body and surface, like that of hand on concrete, as it is with bodies on bodies.

Your thesis is the style of the film reflects wing chun. The problem with this is two-fold. For starters (as you note) most of the fighters in the film do not practice Wing Chun, only Ip Man does. Taiji, xingyiquan and baguazhang are all northern styles of fighting which are acrobatic (and featured in the film) but the visual style remains the tight approach we've been discussing. There are also a number of fights which do not feature Ip Man. Shouldn't the visual style then shift to reflect the martial arts of those fights? Secondly, for a variety of reasons I don't think it is accurate to say wing chun is a martial art focused on hands and feet. For instance the second form chum kiu introduces the use of striking elbows and knees (similar to muay thai in that regard). Primarily Wing Chun is about stability, form and balance in contrast to the northern styles high jumps and fluidity of motion. So if the goal of the style of the film were to reflect the ethos of wing chun (something I'm not convinced should be the focus of the film) it would be perhaps more worthwhile to use stationary wide shots to reflect the emphasis on balance. Or at least if the film had been shot that way (the manner in which I would find preferable) I could equally defend the stylistic approach in relation to wing chun.

Furthermore how the film is shot is not the only thing wrong with it. The ruminations of characters are belabored, plenty of characters are underdeveloped and frankly I find the whole affair rather tedious and lacking humor or the emotional sensitivity evidenced in earlier Wong films (Happy Together, Fallen Angels, Chungking, In the Mood).



We can ask, what use is this shot? Surely you don't really see emphasis on these kinds of shots in a lot of traditional wuxia films, but this isn't a traditional wuxia film. The fight sequence between Gong Er and Ip Man isn't a fight sequence so much as it is a love sequence. The scene truly is about intimacy. These types of shots aren't there just because they "look cool." The fight in the rain might also look "cool," but it's much more about what it says about the martial artist and the environment in the same way the enveloping fog at the train station does in Gong Er's centerpiece fight or the the trudging through the snow in her quest for vengeance. It's important to note the lighting in these shots, the emphasis on faces or body parts in close-up is robust and evocative.

The technique here, then, is highly function. It isn't about "looking cool," but directly plays into Wong's overarching thematic interests and concerns. We might disagree about the thematic details or the specific effect, but you'll have to provide far more substantial argument to convince me that his technique isn't generally functional and that his technique in The Grandmaster isn't a reflection of the same development and deliberate focus seen elsewhere in his career.

Right, as I mentioned, Wong can "still cut to their faces the moments when they were in close proximity to each other (to show their developing affection)". I think that shot works and there's another compelling image at 1:15 that really emphasizes movement. It's the overall scene construction that doesn't work for me because every motion/action is told in isolation. I don't find shots flow into one another because as I mentioned there are so many inserts and I don't get a clear sense of the space. You don't need cut aways to onlookers if you include them in your wide shots.

I don't find it robust or evocative, simply stating that rhetorically does not make it so. ;) The lighting is fine, lots of soft light. *shrug* In this case my problem isn't with the lighting but the compositions and scene construction.



This is just beautiful! Thank you for posting this.

I totally disagree with you that Wong doesn't establish his geography. The entire film establishes geography, but it's not through sustaining wide-angle lens spatial awareness (even if we get establishing shots), but it's through the sensual touch of the body and environment. Which is to say, it doesn't emphasize the environment through shots of broad inclusive generalizations of space, but through analysis. An environment can imply a lack of space, or closed space, as much as it implies open space. In addition, emphasizing the environment can be done to say something general (like with an establishing wide-shot that indicates setting or location) or something specific (like the relationship between a hand and a door-knob, or a foot on the hardwood floor of a brothel). The environments are often tactile physical impediments, gliding surfaces, or complementary tools for its protagonists rather than vast open fields, deserts, and buildings you see in other wuxia's that emphasize free form acrobatics, which in a sense, downplays the environment as an active character in some cases. Just look at the way Gong Er's slipper slides across the wooden floor and the way it drowns out the rest of the sound on the soundtrack. It's an aesthetic of hands and feet, a martial arts of the same.

I don't find it analyzes much of anything. It's very easy to shoot a close-up of a face or a hand with a shallow depth of field. Shooting wide correctly can convey closed space as effectively and sometimes more effectively than shooting tight (because you're seeing how tightly constrained the characters are in the space). The hallway fight in Oldboy for instance demonstrates character proximity effectively.


The emphasis is all faces, hands, and feet, but I think the choreography is beautiful and everything seems very clear to me. As for 1:52, the editing is insignificantly discontinuous. I'm not at all bothered by the fact that one of her hands is free by the time the camera refocuses on her counter. I also see absolutely nothing pointless or lazy about the cut-aways to close-ups of people sitting and watching, as it establishes that there is an audience, such as the gasp of awe when they tumble down the flight of stairs.

As for 1:32, it seems clear to me that she's striking with her left hand as she sees Ip Man dodge to her left side away from her strike at him with her right hand. What we don't see is how he positions himself to dodge the blow because it shows her striking instead. The effect here is poetic as it goes to slow motion to show her arm almost bent by the tremor impact from his block. (This is one instance I mean by a more poetic emphasis on 'physicality,' but this fight scene isn't a representative example as it's more about intimacy). There's a clear sense to me in which his evasive movement is supposed to seem "unseen," given his stoic "looking away" glance as he outmaneuvers her with his block, but I don't think it's at all lost that she's aiming directly at him and he quickly repositioned.

I find it significantly discontinuous because I now have no reason to believe she effectively broke out of his hold and they then go into a break in the fight. That shot to me feels exactly like what it is, an insert. That discontinuity breaks my suspension of disbelief. I didn't have to go through this scene to find the moment because I found it so clumsy that I remembered it from my first viewing of the film. They're also leaping around quite a bit here and at the end of the fight which contradicts your wing chun aesthetic thesis.

At 1:32 we see her hand go in for the strike. We see him not move his head or body at all and just deflect the blow with his fist. There's nothing there to suggest she was actually aiming for him and that he moved. This is because it's another insert. If he had ever so slightly moved his head back the shot would work. Even the shot before he turns back to look at her to get vision on her. He still isn't moving out of the way of anything. The concept here, of her technique to get behind him and his ability to rebuff her effortlessly is good but the way it's shot combined with the choreography robs him of his one-upmanship. This is because I don't buy that he moved out of the way of anything. What I see is an actress striking in front of someone who then blocks that strike because it wasn't going to hit them anyway. There's nothing poetic to me about a fist punching an open palm. IT's aw


This is one of my favorite fight scenes of all time and one of my favorite wuxias. I won't criticize or nitpick it, but I don't think your arguments against Wong's film are successful. I can understand if Wong's style of film isn't to your tastes, but I don't share your interpretative conclusions.

The only thing I don't understand fully in that Crouching Tiger fight is how in the first bout she goes from having one sword to two. Is the implication that the green destiny cut that sword in half? Is it a sword that separates somehow?

Izzy Black
01-05-2014, 10:42 PM
Your thesis is the style of the film reflects wing chun. The problem with this is two-fold. For starters (as you note) most of the fighters in the film do not practice Wing Chun, only Ip Man does. Taiji, xingyiquan and baguazhang are all northern styles of fighting which are acrobatic (and featured in the film) but the visual style remains the tight approach we've been discussing. There are also a number of fights which do not feature Ip Man. Shouldn't the visual style then shift to reflect the martial arts of those fights? Secondly, for a variety of reasons I don't think it is accurate to say wing chun is a martial art focused on hands and feet. For instance the second form chum kiu introduces the use of striking elbows and knees (similar to muay thai in that regard). Primarily Wing Chun is about stability, form and balance in contrast to the northern styles high jumps and fluidity of motion. So if the goal of the style of the film were to reflect the ethos of wing chun (something I'm not convinced should be the focus of the film) it would be perhaps more worthwhile to use stationary wide shots to reflect the emphasis on balance. Or at least if the film had been shot that way (the manner in which I would find preferable) I could equally defend the stylistic approach in relation to wing chun.

This isn't exactly my thesis. The style of the film reflects many things. This is why I gave an overview of Wong's stylistic development. In some cases, the emphasis is on intimacy, in other cases it's about intense concentration, or about time and social change, or the the relationship between the martial artist and the environment (such as in the rain sequence or the fogy train sequence). More generally, it is a reflection of a certain approach or understanding of martial arts. It's perhaps most consistent with an expression or development of Wing Chun, but it certainly goes well beyond that though. The points in the film about "precision" and the "horizontal and vertical" fighter aren't exclusively Wing Chun concepts, but are certain principles the film is eager to flesh out or emphasize. The two martial arts protagonists the film follows - Ip Man and Gong Er - are neither practitioners of over-the-top, high-flying, acrobatic style Kung Fu, but rather Ip Man's Wing Chun and Gong Er's Bagua (a style of Wudang) that both emphasize center-line body control. It's an interesting dynamic that Wing Chun's symmetry is more directional in a kind of straight line, whereas Gong Er's Bagua symmetry has a more circular sense of control and balance. To each, the hands, feet, and a balanced center established by the torso or waistline are essential features of their style of fighting. Both rely heavily on strikes, although Gong Er's style is more fluid and free-form, which is reflected in her fight with Ip Man. This breaks with a tradition of wuxia that is more inclined toward fantasy than realism, in particular, the mythos on display in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where the martial artists aren't just warriors, but mystical characters in a way, possessing powers resembling sorcery and magic. Here (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/23/entertainment/la-edt-mn-ca-wong-kar-wai-grandmaster-20130825)'s Yeun on Wong's approach:

“Wong didn’t want any flying scenes, he wanted every fight to be stylistically authentic,” explained the DP. “He would concentrate on the smallest details – how hands were positioned for example, so they would be right for each of the different styles of combat"


In addition, I think even the beautiful natural skin tones and the fine grain detail of the FUJI Eterna 500T film stock helps bring out the film's emphasis on sensual details and more natural authenticity. Of course, the rich gray palette also complements the film's worn, faded melancholy.


Furthermore how the film is shot is not the only thing wrong with it. The ruminations of characters are belabored, plenty of characters are underdeveloped and frankly I find the whole affair rather tedious and lacking humor or the emotional sensitivity evidenced in earlier Wong films (Happy Together, Fallen Angels, Chungking, In the Mood).

The film definitely lacks humor, but of course I don't think that's a fault. I don't agree about the lack of character development, however. Gong Er is probably my favorite character of the year.


Right, as I mentioned, Wong can "still cut to their faces the moments when they were in close proximity to each other (to show their developing affection)". I think that shot works and there's another compelling image at 1:15 that really emphasizes movement. It's the overall scene construction that doesn't work for me because every motion/action is told in isolation. I don't find shots flow into one another because as I mentioned there are so many inserts and I don't get a clear sense of the space. You don't need cut aways to onlookers if you include them in your wide shots.

Well, unless they're reaction shots, which one of them clearly was. And, you do need cut-away if your aesthetic doesn't rely on wide shots and you still want to establish audience reactions.


I don't find it robust or evocative, simply stating that rhetorically does not make it so. ;) The lighting is fine, lots of soft light. *shrug* In this case my problem isn't with the lighting but the compositions and scene construction.

I actually had some argument on this point. The shot I posted is, I suggeted, at the very least evocative of theme. I think the lighting helps draw emphasis or to underscore dramatic importance.


I don't find it analyzes much of anything. It's very easy to shoot a close-up of a face or a hand with a shallow depth of field. Shooting wide correctly can convey closed space as effectively and sometimes more effectively than shooting tight (because you're seeing how tightly constrained the characters are in the space). The hallway fight in Oldboy for instance demonstrates character proximity effectively.

I think a number of things bring out textural details. For instance, the film stock, as I noted above, the lensing, the framing, and the use of slow-motion. These things aren't technically impossible to achieve. Neither is a technique that relies on wide shots. That was never my point. My point was that these are deliberate stylistic choices with a certain emphasis. The close-up of Gong Er sliding her slipper across the wooden floor in slow motion with the magnified, reverberating sound of something that should otherwise be a whisper doesn't achieve the same effect as a wide shot. We then see close-ups of faces in stoic concentration, even the cut-aways to the audience in soft focus are obscured by the framing, they almost feel like old photographs of bygone era. For instance, just prior to Gong Er and Ip Man's fight as they are preparing, Wong uses the delayed shutter speed and opera music to show the stern faces of the onlookers watching intently in almost completely stationary poses of ornamented grandeur. (This also calls back to the Ip Man family photograph motif). It all helps contribute to this sense of the lost history of a rarefied and refined culture seemingly stolen from time. It also emphasizes the sense of ritual and importance to their fight, as she recounts the significance of her carrying the weight of her father's legacy. The sustained elegance of the setting and the style of the sequence also underscores her point about "damaging the decor" and the suggestion that any such damage merely displays a lack of precision on the part of the martial artist. It might in some ways feel too overbearing or quite pretentious in its idealizing of the Golden Age of Kung Fu, but this subjective quality is important in that it represents how seriously they take this culture, that it's so much more to them than physical fitness, but it's a way of life, and what we get is a timeless image of this culture destroyed by the tragedy and political turmoil that eventually engulfs them.


I find it significantly discontinuous because I now have no reason to believe she effectively broke out of his hold and they then go into a break in the fight. That shot to me feels exactly like what it is, an insert. That discontinuity breaks my suspension of disbelief. I didn't have to go through this scene to find the moment because I found it so clumsy that I remembered it from my first viewing of the film. They're also leaping around quite a bit here and at the end of the fight which contradicts your wing chun aesthetic thesis.

I've already addressed the point about Wing Chun above and that I'm not argue for an exclusively Wing Chun aesthetic thesis on the film. I think the aesthetic is complicated and reflects many things, but the way it complements the style of Wing Chun is one of it's features. I also addressed in numerous cases in my last post that the stylistic function of this fight in particular was more about intimacy: "Although Ip Man's fight with Gong Er is more balletic and elegant than physical, the emphasis in the sequence is again on intimacy - to underscore an intense dynamic and quietly erotic, warm-bodied chemistry between them that haunts them for the remainder of the film."

As for the discontinuity, I'm sorry that you it took you out of the film. I have no problem that one of her hands is free by the time the camera refocuses on her counter. It didn't affect my impression of its believability.


At 1:32 we see her hand go in for the strike. We see him not move his head or body at all and just deflect the blow with his fist. There's nothing there to suggest she was actually aiming for him and that he moved. This is because it's another insert. If he had ever so slightly moved his head back the shot would work. Even the shot before he turns back to look at her to get vision on her. He still isn't moving out of the way of anything.

I don't agree. When she strikes at him from behind with her right hand he clearly turns to his left and thus suggesting a position on her left side. When it cuts to her left handed strike, what we see is him in a fully resolved position. We don't exactly see how he settles into the counter, but there's no reason to think that logically he wouldn't have positioned himself this way from the last blow.


The concept here, of her technique to get behind him and his ability to rebuff her effortlessly is good but the way it's shot combined with the choreography robs him of his one-upmanship. This is because I don't buy that he moved out of the way of anything. What I see is an actress striking in front of someone who then blocks that strike because it wasn't going to hit them anyway. There's nothing poetic to me about a fist punching an open palm. IT's aw

I don't agree. The fact that it is was such a quick, unseen maneuver is a credit to his one-upmanship, especially in the way that he's confidently looking away from her as he parrys rather than directly at her.


The only thing I don't understand fully in that Crouching Tiger fight is how in the first bout she goes from having one sword to two. Is the implication that the green destiny cut that sword in half? Is it a sword that separates somehow?

That's a good question, but it's really hard for me to analyze some of these kinds of sequences in Crouching Tiger because of how fantastical the film is. For instance, I always thought it was strange how Jen completely missed Li Mu Bai in her first fight with him as he nods his head back just slightly and then he somehow just flipped her back from just poking her with his sword. You can see it at 1:20 here (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhr7l5_my-name-is-li-mu-bai_shortfilms). But it's hard to call that some kind of technical mistake. It's just that Li Mu Bai is that awesome.

Izzy Black
01-05-2014, 10:50 PM
Your thesis is the style of the film reflects wing chun. The problem with this is two-fold. For starters (as you note) most of the fighters in the film do not practice Wing Chun, only Ip Man does. Taiji, xingyiquan and baguazhang are all northern styles of fighting which are acrobatic (and featured in the film) but the visual style remains the tight approach we've been discussing. There are also a number of fights which do not feature Ip Man. Shouldn't the visual style then shift to reflect the martial arts of those fights? Secondly, for a variety of reasons I don't think it is accurate to say wing chun is a martial art focused on hands and feet. For instance the second form chum kiu introduces the use of striking elbows and knees (similar to muay thai in that regard). Primarily Wing Chun is about stability, form and balance in contrast to the northern styles high jumps and fluidity of motion. So if the goal of the style of the film were to reflect the ethos of wing chun (something I'm not convinced should be the focus of the film) it would be perhaps more worthwhile to use stationary wide shots to reflect the emphasis on balance. Or at least if the film had been shot that way (the manner in which I would find preferable) I could equally defend the stylistic approach in relation to wing chun.

That isn't exactly my thesis. The style of film reflects many things. This is why I gave an overview of Wong's stylistic development. In some cases, the emphasis is on intimacy, in other cases it's about intense concentration, or about time and social change, or the the relationship between the martial artist and the environment (such as in the rain sequence or the fogy train sequence). More generally, it is a reflection of a certain approach or understanding of martial arts. It's perhaps most consistent with an expression or development of Wing Chun, but it certainly goes well beyond that though. The points in the film about "precision" and the "horizontal and vertical" fighter aren't exclusively Wing Chun concepts, but are certain principles the film is eager to flesh out or emphasize. The two martial arts protagonists the film follows - Ip Man and Gong Er - are neither practitioners of over-the-top, high-flying, acrobatic style Kung Fu, but rather Ip Man's Wing Chun and Gong Er's Bagua (a style of Wudang) that both emphasize center-line body control and simplicity. It's an interesting dynamic that Wing Chun's symmetry is more directional in a kind of straight line, whereas Gong Er's Bagua symmetry has a more circular sense of control and balance. To each, the hands, feet, and a balanced center established by the torso or waistline are essential features of their style of fighting. Both rely heavily on strikes, although Gong Er's style is more fluid and free-form, which is reflected in her fight with Ip Man. This breaks with a tradition of wuxia that is more inclined toward fantasy than realism, in particular, the mythos on display in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon where the martial artists aren't just warriors, but mystical characters in a way, possessing powers resembling sorcery and magic. Here (http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/23/entertainment/la-edt-mn-ca-wong-kar-wai-grandmaster-20130825)'s Yeun on Wong's approach:

“Wong didn’t want any flying scenes, he wanted every fight to be stylistically authentic,” explained the DP. “He would concentrate on the smallest details – how hands were positioned for example, so they would be right for each of the different styles of combat"


In addition, I think even the beautiful natural skin tones and the fine grain detail of the FUJI Eterna 500T film stock helps bring out the film's emphasis on sensual details and more natural authenticity. Of course, the rich gray palette also complements the film's worn, faded melancholy.


Furthermore how the film is shot is not the only thing wrong with it. The ruminations of characters are belabored, plenty of characters are underdeveloped and frankly I find the whole affair rather tedious and lacking humor or the emotional sensitivity evidenced in earlier Wong films (Happy Together, Fallen Angels, Chungking, In the Mood).

The film definitely lacks humor, but of course I don't think that's a fault. I don't agree about the lack of character development, however. Gong Er is probably my favorite character of the year.


Right, as I mentioned, Wong can "still cut to their faces the moments when they were in close proximity to each other (to show their developing affection)". I think that shot works and there's another compelling image at 1:15 that really emphasizes movement. It's the overall scene construction that doesn't work for me because every motion/action is told in isolation. I don't find shots flow into one another because as I mentioned there are so many inserts and I don't get a clear sense of the space. You don't need cut aways to onlookers if you include them in your wide shots.

Well, unless they're reaction shots, which one of them clearly was. And, you do need cut-aways if your aesthetic doesn't rely on wide shots and you still want to establish audience reactions.


I don't find it robust or evocative, simply stating that rhetorically does not make it so. ;) The lighting is fine, lots of soft light. *shrug* In this case my problem isn't with the lighting but the compositions and scene construction.

I actually had some argument on this point. The shot I posted is, I suggeted, at the very least evocative of theme. I think the lighting helps draw emphasis or to underscore dramatic importance.


I don't find it analyzes much of anything. It's very easy to shoot a close-up of a face or a hand with a shallow depth of field. Shooting wide correctly can convey closed space as effectively and sometimes more effectively than shooting tight (because you're seeing how tightly constrained the characters are in the space). The hallway fight in Oldboy for instance demonstrates character proximity effectively.

I think a number of things bring out textural details. For instance, the film stock, as I noted above, the lensing, the framing, and the use of slow-motion. These things aren't technically impossible to achieve. Neither is a technique that relies on wide shots. That was never my point. My point was that these are deliberate stylistic choices with a certain emphasis. The close-up of Gong Er sliding her slipper across the wooden floor in slow motion with the magnified, reverberating sound of something that should otherwise be a whisper doesn't achieve the same effect as a wide shot. We then see close-ups of faces in stoic concentration, even the cut-aways to the audience in soft focus are obscured by the framing, they almost feel like old photographs of bygone era. For instance, just prior to Gong Er and Ip Man's fight as they are preparing, Wong uses the delayed shutter speed and opera music to show the stern faces of the onlookers watching intently in almost completely stationary poses of ornamented grandeur. (This also calls back to the Ip Man family photograph motif). It all helps contribute to this sense of the lost history of a rarefied and refined culture seemingly stolen from time. It also emphasizes the sense of ritual and importance to their fight, as she recounts the significance of her carrying the weight of her father's legacy. The sustained elegance of the setting and the style of the sequence also underscores her point about "damaging the decor" and the suggestion that any such damage merely displays a lack of precision on the part of the martial artist. It might in some ways feel too overbearing or quite pretentious in its idealizing of the Golden Age of Kung Fu, but this subjective quality is important in that it represents how seriously they take this culture, that it's so much more to them than physical fitness, but it's a way of life, and what we get is a timeless image of this culture destroyed by the tragedy and political turmoil that eventually engulfs them.


I find it significantly discontinuous because I now have no reason to believe she effectively broke out of his hold and they then go into a break in the fight. That shot to me feels exactly like what it is, an insert. That discontinuity breaks my suspension of disbelief. I didn't have to go through this scene to find the moment because I found it so clumsy that I remembered it from my first viewing of the film. They're also leaping around quite a bit here and at the end of the fight which contradicts your wing chun aesthetic thesis.

I've already addressed the point about Wing Chun above and that I'm not arguing for an exclusively Wing Chun aesthetic thesis on the film. I think the aesthetic is complicated and reflects many things, but the way it complements the style of Wing Chun is one of its features. I also addressed in numerous cases in my last post that the stylistic function of this fight in particular was more about intimacy: "Although Ip Man's fight with Gong Er is more balletic and elegant than physical, the emphasis in the sequence is again on intimacy - to underscore an intense dynamic and quietly erotic, warm-bodied chemistry between them that haunts them for the remainder of the film."

As for the discontinuity, I'm sorry that it took you out of the film. I have no problem that one of her hands is free by the time the camera refocuses on her counter. It didn't affect my impression of its believability.


At 1:32 we see her hand go in for the strike. We see him not move his head or body at all and just deflect the blow with his fist. There's nothing there to suggest she was actually aiming for him and that he moved. This is because it's another insert. If he had ever so slightly moved his head back the shot would work. Even the shot before he turns back to look at her to get vision on her. He still isn't moving out of the way of anything.

I don't agree. When she strikes at him from behind with her right hand he clearly turns to his left and thus suggesting a position on her left side. When it cuts to her left handed strike, what we see is him in a fully resolved position. We don't exactly see how he settles into the counter, but there's no reason to think that logically he wouldn't have positioned himself this way from the last blow.


The concept here, of her technique to get behind him and his ability to rebuff her effortlessly is good but the way it's shot combined with the choreography robs him of his one-upmanship. This is because I don't buy that he moved out of the way of anything. What I see is an actress striking in front of someone who then blocks that strike because it wasn't going to hit them anyway. There's nothing poetic to me about a fist punching an open palm. IT's aw

I don't agree. The fact that it is was such a quick, unseen maneuver is a credit to his one-upmanship, especially in the way that he's confidently looking away from her as he parrys rather than directly at her.


The only thing I don't understand fully in that Crouching Tiger fight is how in the first bout she goes from having one sword to two. Is the implication that the green destiny cut that sword in half? Is it a sword that separates somehow?

That's a good question, but it's really hard for me to analyze some of these kinds of sequences in Crouching Tiger because of how fantastical the film is. For instance, I always thought it was strange how Jen completely missed Li Mu Bai in her first fight with him as he nods his head back just slightly and then he somehow just flipped her back from just poking her with his sword. You can see it at 1:20 here (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhr7l5_my-name-is-li-mu-bai_shortfilms). But it's hard to call that some kind of technical mistake. It's just that Li Mu Bai is that awesome.

Stay Puft
02-11-2014, 03:00 AM
Apparently there are three different cuts? And I saw the European cut? Ok.

Nice discussion between Izzy and Q. I find myself agreeing with points both are making. It's a gorgeous looking film, beautiful and melancholy, and at times felt like a cross between In the Mood for Love and Once Upon a Time in America (watching the credits confirmed it; Wong used a selection from Morricone's score). Some of the action is pretty good, I thought - I really like the fight scene between Ip and Gong Er - but I agree with Qrazy that it could still be a lot better, some of the inserts in particular just don't flow with other shots and it doesn't feel right.

I'm also of two minds on the "meandering" narrative quality being discussed. I do love many of the details and textures Wong captures. I love that meeting between Gong Er and Razor on the train. But then other scenes with Razor don't make much sense to me. He has a fight scene that has a nice contrast to the opening scene with Ip; Razor is much more aggressive, powerful, and there's plenty of bone crunching and blood sprays. But the tone of some of these scenes also feels off; the barber shop stuff in particular feels like it got spliced in from another film (the performance of the dude who tries to take the money and gets put in the chair is downright slapstick).

I also found myself wishing there was more, though. More scenes with Ip's wife. More to flesh out the relationship between Ip and Gong Er over the years. The closing passages didn't land with the force I expected, and I felt like a lot was just missing. I read the Bordwell piece about the different versions, and he suggests that the original concept for the film may have been a novelistic, multi-perspective character drama... and now I find myself wishing there was a four hour cut of this thing because that sounds awesome. Anyways, perhaps I'll check out the other versions and see what they offer, or perhaps another viewing and more reflection will help fill in some of those emotional blanks.

But I did enjoy the film quite a bit overall. My only real criticism is the soundtrack. Wong is usually on point with his music but damn I thought it was really inconsistent here, and completely bland and overbearing during some dialogue scenes. That was disappointing.

EyesWideOpen
03-06-2014, 09:59 PM
The blu-ray release that's about to arrive is just the US cut. When are these studios ever going to learn?

Skitch
04-19-2014, 06:04 PM
Vote withheld.

I watched the Netflix version which is the Harvey Scissorhands cut.

Reading between the lines of what could be, it enrages me that Harvey suggests this version is more linear and makes more sense, because its a wreck. Just going by where I feel big parts were skipped or cut...well...I guess I'm just completely speculating since I haven't seen the full film.

I really think I would love the fully fleshed out film. If I only had to vote on this cut, it would be easily be a thumbs down with a recommendation to watch any of the other five or so Ip Man movies on Netflix.

Damn you Harvey, and your perception of the American audiences.

quido8_5
06-02-2014, 01:45 AM
Vote withheld.

I watched the Netflix version which is the Harvey Scissorhands cut.

Reading between the lines of what could be, it enrages me that Harvey suggests this version is more linear and makes more sense, because its a wreck.

Damn you Harvey, and your perception of the American audiences.

Eh, have to disagree here. Just finished the Weinstein cut and though it's insubstantial it's still beautiful and entertaining. I'm sure the full cut is a quite different experience, but I got enough of the Kar-Wai flavor that I was able to enjoy it. I air on the side of Qrazy with the framing and editing of the fight sequences, albeit somewhat more pleasantly ambivalent. It's not the best in the world, sure, but the choreography is well-thought out and it's better than the generic, kinetic 300-type fight sequences that have somehow wormed their way into most action films of late.