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The Grandmaster

Chen Chang (Actor), Cung Le (Actor), Kar-Wai Wong (Director, Producer) Rated:
PG-13
Format: DVD
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,231 ratings
IMDb6.6/10.0
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Genre Action/Adventure
Format Color, Widescreen, Multiple Formats, NTSC
Contributor Ziyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Tony Leung, Hye-kyo Song, Kar-Wai Wong, Cung Le, Woo-Ping Yuen -
Language Chinese, Japanese
Runtime 1 hour and 48 minutes
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Product Description

Biopic of legendary martial arts master, Yip Man, who trained Bruce Lee.

Product details

  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 2.4 ounces
  • Audio Description: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ 28928259
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Kar-Wai Wong
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Color, Widescreen, Multiple Formats, NTSC
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 48 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ March 4, 2014
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Chen Chang, Cung Le, Tony Leung, Ziyi Zhang, Woo-Ping Yuen -
  • Producers ‏ : ‎ Kar-Wai Wong
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Lionsgate
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00ET2ODYY
  • Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,231 ratings

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
2,231 global ratings
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I cannot watch my Blu-Ray DVD, I looked forward so much to watching this movie. Now I can't, I'm so disappointed right now. It's my own fault for not checking this movie better, not sure what else to do now. 😟
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Top reviews from the United States

Chad Brawley
5.0 out of 5 stars Cool movie - great price
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2024
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Excellent movie at a great price
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Charles Nordlander
5.0 out of 5 stars HONG KONG VS. U.S. VERSIONS: WHICH TO BUY AND WHY
Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2014
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I've seen the U.S. version of this film about a half dozen times in theaters. Needless to say, I'm a huge fan. But I've been wondering if, as some have suggested, it's a "dumbed down" edit for American audiences compared to the longer Hong Kong release. So when this Blu-ray's launch date was delayed, I decided to buy the HK version and I was surprised by the differences in ways I did not expect at all.

Let me start with the bad news first: if you're a fan of the film, you really need to own both versions. Both have important strengths, and neither one is a wholly satisfying substitute for the other. BUT… if you forced me to pick just one, I'd have to say the U.S. release would be it, and that's not the conclusion I expected to reach. Here are the pros and cons of each:

HK PROS:

1) It fully fleshes out a few characters who have been edited down to cardboard cutouts in the American release. In particular, you'll be astonished at how much more there is to the stories of The Razor, Madame Ip and Ding Lianshan (the guy who only shows up in the cigarette lighting scene with Ip in the U.S. version.)

2) There is just a little more background information to many things throughout the film, which makes for a more complete story.

HK CONS:

1) It eliminates the amazing scenes of Gong Er, both as a child and an adult, practicing martial arts in the snow!!! These are some of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, and I was shocked to find them gone in the longer version.

2) It doesn't mention that Ip Man trained Bruce Lee! Again, I was shocked, since this is such a key revelation in the U.S. release, and it brings Ip's story full circle. Maybe the assumption was that Asian audiences would just know this.

3) The HK version just doesn't feel as taut and powerful as the U.S. release. Yes, this is a very subjective comment, but I thought the longer lengths of just about everything in the film left the pacing feeling sluggish and "off" by comparison.

HK DIFFERENCES (not pro or con, just different from U.S.)

1) The U.S. release focuses on Gong Er's later opium addiction, and is clear that she died from it. The HK version mentions but doesn't focus on the addiction, and is vague about whether she died from it… it's presented as just one possibility rather than a certainty. I'm not sure which version is the more accurate.

2) Gong Er is more focused on vengeance in the HK version.

3) In the key early scene where Ip Man breaks the cake in the hand of the Northern Grandmaster, Ip says something very different after breaking it than he does in the U.S. version.

U.S. PROS:

1) Ultimately, while you lose what I've mentioned above in this edited version, the editing makes for a tighter, better paced and more powerful film. And this is why I'd pick this release if I could only choose one.

2) There's a difference in the scoring of the U.S. version (though not a new score)--probably driven by the differences in editing--and it also contributes to the U.S. release being more powerful.

3) It contains the unmissable scenes of Gong Er practicing in the snow.

4) It contains the important info about Bruce Lee.

U.S. CONS:

1) Poor development of a few important characters (see above)

2) Less background info throughout (but the story is still completely understandable)

Well, there you have it! Thanks for taking the time to read my review, and I hope you find in helpful in making a buying decision!
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Vibingmyindividuality
5.0 out of 5 stars Yessss!
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2024
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I'm so glad that I found this martial arts movie, Grandmaster! Another wonderful movie to add to my collection!
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Woopak
4.0 out of 5 stars Director Wong Kar-Wai Takes on the Life of Bruce Lee's Former Teacher
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2013
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I suppose being Bruce Lee's former teacher and someone who had made the martial art Wing Chun known around the world, the curiosity around his life became so strong that directors Wilson Yip and Herman Yau had their turn in bringing his life to the big screen. Wilson Yip's "Ip Man" was a film with a lot of fiction around it, which focused entirely on action sequences with Donnie Yen in the title role. Herman Yau's "The Legend is Born: Ip Man" was an unspectacular martial arts drama but a little more subtle and certainly not as bombastic as Wilson Yip's films.

Well, finally the highly anticipated biopic about Ip Man directed by Wong Kar-Wai has finally arrived. A little different from his usual films, as the film goes for refreshing ideas and themes rather than decadent emotions, it is a film that has a lot of hype as with any other film directed by him. People should be aware that one needs to temper their expectations with Wong Kar-Wai's "The Grandmaster". It is a film about a true-to-life figure and is a period piece that brings the concept of how martial arts can apply to living. Wong Kar-Wai takes on a premise that he has not done before that his fans would have reason to celebrate. This review is based on the 130 minute film released in Asia, I have heard that another cut of the film was debuted internationally.

1930s China. Ip Man (Tony Leung) is a rich, young martial arts master who does not want to compete and yet he finds himself thrust into the limelight as his peers push him into a sparring match with Chinese Martial Arts chairman Gong Yutian (Wang Qingxiang). The match was more technical than a display of skills as Ip Man asserts his inner skill to get the best of Yutian. As a result, Yutian's daughter, Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi) who is also a master in her own right of the 64 hands, issues a challenge to Master Ip as to restore her family's reputation. The two spar in a flow of rhythmic movements that almost looked like poetry. This is only the first few minutes of the film, as Wong Kar-Wai co-wrote the screenplay to include certain periods in Ip Man's life. If life has four seasons, then the first 20 years is spring, but then his life takes a turn to winter during the Sino-Japanese war.

Wong Kar-Wai intentionally made the film to feel rather convoluted and episodic. Perhaps in an effort to express his themes and metaphors, and to cover as much of Ip Man's life as best he could. Wong does not primarily takes his focus on Master Ip's life, but rather he brings into the fold the way each period was in his life and how certain people have influenced his life both directly and indirectly. The writing in the film was definitely trying to bring forth the concept as to how the teachings of martial arts could be applied to the living of one's life, as Tony Leung clearly elaborates in the first few minutes in the film; "It is all about the horizontal and the vertical". I take it that one is left standing while the other is laying down in martial arts. Such is something that could certainly be seen in life. One stands while the other lays down, perhaps one needs to learn how to lay down in order to stand, and also at a mirror image, one needs to learn to lay down in order to stand.

Wong Kar-Wai has some rather heavy themes going around here. There is much to take in the film, the dialogue is often filled with philosophical meanings and metaphors, but we all know that it is usually what a Wong Kar-Wai movie is all about. The characters in the film move about its themes, and while its structure felt a little loose, the resonance for each of them is pretty crystal clear. Ma San (Zhang Jin) and Gong Er make choices that often feel that they were based on emotions such as pride, anger, honor and love. The theme of vengeance that comes with the two, was something that keeps them from fully reaching the peak of kung fu. This brings into its narrative as to there are three levels that signify the highest achievement in martial arts: "being, knowing and doing." This lesson comes from Master Gong to Ma San, and strongly expressed through Gong Er's life that she had taken a vow that kept her from becoming a wife and having children in order to avenge her father. Ma San and Gong Er chooses from a very straight-forward emotional level that chooses their destiny for them.

Now, Master Ip also has potential for all these emotions, but he is more passive. His approach to life is a more peaceful one, as his love for Gong Er remained inside and that such a thing could not be in the past. Master Ip is married to Wing Sing (Song Hye-Kyo in a limited screen time) while Gong Er was engaged. Ip Man choose to rise above such desires and ambition, that he approaches life from a less than aggrandizing path. There is a subtle subversive message around its narrative, and yet it sees things from a humanist point of view. Life has its regrets, and yet, here, it is not something that drives its narrative but merely a consequence. Wong places the film's priorities on the world around the individual rather than what the individual does to the world.

As with Wong Kar-wai's usual style, the film is very lush and a little pretentious. This is not a negative comment, but rather something that I have just grown to be fond of when it came to Wong's films. Wong uses slow-motion with overblown art direction and redolent details to bring the power, the beauty and the flair of the martial arts. All angles were utilized to display the moves and even some close ups to bring forth its effects and intensity. It is a true visual feast but I could've done without the `fighting in the rain' since it had been done so much in other films. The cinematography and the atmosphere of the film fit just should be expected of Wong Kar-Wai; this is after all a style all his own and what made him the renowned filmmaker that he is today.

The screenplay in "The Grandmaster" is pretty strong, and yet it does not come with some issues. I mean, I know this is meant as a biopic, but one is left to wonder if this is Ip Man as seen through his eyes, or is it Master Ip as seen through Wong's viewpoint? I know the film's intentions was a less than fictional one, but really, it feels a little unfocused at times. The script takes some detours that I thought unnecessary, I was a little dumbfounded how a nationalist agent turned ass-kicking barber called "the Razor" could've made a good device to further Ip Man's transitions and yet he was only in three scenes. Chang Chen's the Razor was shamelessly used and felt like a `filler' since the film could've gotten along fine without him. I also thought that the narrative played a little too heavy on Zhang Ziyi's character rather than its supposed main protagonist.

"The Grandmaster" could've easily been called "The Grandmasters" as in the plural form. It feels little unfocused to be a biopic on Master Ip, and truth be told, its messages could've easily been delivered in a film by any other director about a martial artist's journey experiencing the same things in the world. Tony Leung does a great job as the lead, as he felt a little smug and yet, tempered. Stoic, yet filled with emotions. His performance was certainly better than Donnie Yen's. It was also great to see Zhang Ziyi's to once again do her thing; she was elegant, beautiful and graceful as always. Despite some flaws, "The Grandmaster" is a good film that deals with devotion, humility and humanist ideas, and rather than using love as a driving force, it is a mere upshot. It is about just what it means to stand upright, that how one chooses the right path is often the one left standing. This message is truly complete and grown-up that this film gets a High Recommendation from me.

[4 ½ Out of 5 Stars]
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R. Nagashima
5.0 out of 5 stars What you need to know
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2021
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I have read several of the Amazon reviews for this film. All deal with the film itself. I could not find actual consumer information about the disc, so here is my contribution.

First, the content. The movie is the American version, if you didn’t know, and only the American version. There is another review that details the differences very well if you need to know.

I know that people don't care much these days, but there is a smattering of behind-the-scenes stuff about the film and the making of the film. A token contribution, but worth noting.

The disc is region A, meaning North America. This will play on typical American units.

The movie is in Chinese (Mandarin) with English subtitles. I'm sure everyone knows this, but it needs to be said explicitly somewhere. There is an spoken English language track for those who hate subtitles and, in my opinion, it is not horribly bad.

The run time is, by the box,108 minutes. Resolution is 1080p. The mpaa rating is PG-13.

I hope this helps.
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Vic
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful film what a cast
Reviewed in Canada on January 15, 2022
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The is a great addition to the Ip Man movie mythos the crouching tiger hidden dragon of Ip man films including the Donnie Yen films no disrespect it’s beautifully shot the fight choreography is spectacular with a great and funny ending , what is your style?
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Antoine H.
5.0 out of 5 stars Blu-ray
Reviewed in France on March 31, 2024
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Très bon produit
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antonio rodrigo jimenez
5.0 out of 5 stars THE GRANDMASTER
Reviewed in Mexico on May 22, 2021
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Super contento de recibir mi película. Cuando se estreno en México me encanto después de que salió de cartelera empecé a buscar la película y me fue muy difícil.
Y encantado por la actuación de mi querida Ziyi Zhang y de Tony Leung
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antonio rodrigo jimenez
5.0 out of 5 stars THE GRANDMASTER
Reviewed in Mexico on May 22, 2021
Super contento de recibir mi película. Cuando se estreno en México me encanto después de que salió de cartelera empecé a buscar la película y me fue muy difícil.
Y encantado por la actuación de mi querida Ziyi Zhang y de Tony Leung
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SCOUSE
5.0 out of 5 stars Delivery times
Reviewed in Australia on September 9, 2021
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Enjoy movies of that genre
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J. L. Sievert
5.0 out of 5 stars Two broken lives
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2015
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Kung fu films are popular with many and it's easy to understand why. They are usually stylistic (slick), energetic, show lots of action (especially incredible physical feats), and have simple narrative structures along the lines of comic books (as in good vs. bad). Often I'm not a great fan of them because the formula seems predictable and tedious, and after a while an old tired cliché begins to sour the mind: “If you've seen one, you've seen them all.” But the Grandmaster is different. Or it was for me. I was attracted to it for at least four reasons.

First, I knew a little about Ip Man through some scattered reading references to him over the years. He was an obscure but intriguing figure in my imagination and I wanted to learn more about him.

Second, Won Kar-Wei is the director of the film. His reputation as an auteur, a genuine cinematic artist, precedes him. I respect him and his work.

Third, the actor Tony Leung Chiu-Wai plays Ip Man in the film. There is something about his face, manner and presence (call it charisma, if you will) that exudes calmness, confidence, assurance. He is grounded in his being and if he's afraid of anything, you don't see or sense what it might be. Sizing him up as an opponent is not a confidence booster. You can't picture in detail what will be coming your way but you're disheartened by thinking it will all be bad. He has already beaten you psychologically.

Fourth, history and Sino-Japanese relations interest me. China made Japan. It gave Japan a written language, culture (Buddhism, Confucianism, art, architecture), a bureaucracy, an organized state and a national identity that grew out of such organisation. China was the Middle Kingdom, the grand civilisation, the center of the known world in Asia, its own version of Rome. Independently it gave the world medicine, mathematics, silk, gunpowder, paper (including paper money), and a host of other things which of course included martial arts. Marco Polo could not believe what he encountered when he reached the opulent court of the Kublai Khan in 1274. He had believed the Venetian state he represented personified civilisation. But now what he saw in China changed everything about his understanding of the world.

Japan has always existed in China's shadow and still does. It tried to change the status quo from 1898 to 1945 through invasion, violence, intimidation and oppression (in Korea too). But in the end these efforts came to nothing and it's good they did, as Japan's aggression throughout Asia in the 1930s and '40s was hardly different from that of the Nazi Third Reich in Europe. Japan's traditional twin scourges have been fascism and feudalism, the chronic source of the country's latent fanaticism.

Ip Man (1893-1972) was a Southerner and commoner. So far, two strikes against him, as the seat of Chinese power has always been in the North with the ruling class. His family were well off but he had exceptional determination to improve himself. He had talent too, although it's hard to say sometimes where talent comes from. Perhaps he made that too. Perhaps he simply willed it into being.

The story has four central characters: old Master Gong Yutian (Grandmaster of the Wadang Boxing school in the North), his adult daughter Gong Er (played by the luminous Zhang Ziyi), Ma San (young, ambitious, treacherous and heir to the Wadang school), and Ip Man himself (sometimes called Ye Wen).

Master Gong is nearing the end of his long supremacy as Grandmaster of the Wadang school. He is a great artist in the arts of self-defence but has no son to pass the torch along to. His daughter Gong Er wishes she had been born male to fill the void in the family legacy of these precious arts. As a little girl she watched her father perfecting his moves in the snow of their winter garden. She watched with awe and pride, and later admits as an adult to Ip Man that they were the happiest times and memories of her life. She reveres and adores her father for the great man he is. He is also wise. Gong Er is fiery and tempestuous. She seethes with ambition, loyal and devoted as she is to the family name and legacy. Her father sees this. He tries to calm her. When she first meets Ip Man with her father's contingent of fighters she sees Ip Man as an impudent upstart. To curb her emotions her father says:

“I once had a temper like yours: winning was everything. But life's bigger than that. Take a longer view. Past the mountains the world opens up. Not to see the good in others, not to admit their talent, is to lack generosity.”

As time passes she will understand that her father was correct, that Ip Man's greatness is real, that she had to look past the mountains to see it, and that through seeing it she could open her mind and therefore her heart.

A key point early on in the film is the meeting of these four central characters. Master Gong, his daughter Er, and the master's disciple and heir Ma San go to southern China to meet Ip Man and members of his Wing Chun school for the first time in 1936. The rich North has ruled in practically every way in China, including in the martial arts traditions. The poor South has little to recommend it. Wing Chun (the martial tradition of Ip Man) is not seen as a legitimate art in the eyes of the Northerners. It lacks complexity, artistry and a long lineage of famous practitioners. It is hardly to be taken seriously. Ip Man, modest and honest as he was, admits the greatness of the Wandang school and says to Master Gong that it's an honour to be allowed to confront his school's tradition in combat. He means it truly and Master Gong comes to realise he does. In many ways, as gradually becomes apparent in the film, Ip Man was the son Master Gong never had.

Ip Man fights all three of them. First, he battles Ma San to a stalemate, or perhaps Ip Man wins. Later, in a beautifully choreographed display of martial arts dance, he fights Gong Er. There is something almost erotic in the grace, beauty and power of their display as they spar. The camera slows the action down and we linger over their expressions. In them there is awe, respect and the glimmerings of desire, a desire that will haunt both of them as time passes. Master Gong is the third opponent of Ip Man. The master confesses he is too old to take on the robust skills of Ip Man. But he says they can compete in a different way — through philosophical reflection. They will spar, but at every turn Master Gong will want to observe the meaning behind Ip Man's moves. In other words, why does he fight? What makes the man? What is his essence? To know this is to know more than just skill. Anyone can copy moves. What is the depth behind them? Why live? Art, in other words, should be an expression of what you value most.

Master Gong holds out a flat cake to Ip Man and says:

“Our union [between North and South] was founded 25 years ago. A man from the South came and offered a challenge. He held out a flat cake and asked our Master to break it. Our Master wasn't offended. He even named the man our chairman. It wasn't because of his kung fu but what he said: 'Kung fu divides North and South. Must the country divide as well?'”

They spar. The cake remains intact. Ip Man smiles and says:

“The world is a big place. Why limit it to North and South? It holds you back. To you, this cake is the country. To me, it is much more. Break from what you know and you will know more. The Southern arts are bigger than just the North and South.”

With that, the flat cake breaks, a third of it falling to the floor from Master Gong's hand. He has never been defeated before. He says:

“My technique has never failed me. I never thought I'd see the limits of my own vision. Mr. Ip, today I have made you famous.”

The Japanese invade. They will have China, or so they tell themselves. The year is 1937. They conquer and occupy the South and threaten the North. The South suffers heavily. Foshan, Ip Man's hometown near Guangzhou in Guandong Province, was once a prosperous and peaceful city. No more. It is reduced to poverty and starvation. Three million Chinese in the South will eventually die during the Japanese occupation and by 1943 another three million in the North will be dead. Among those who starved to death in the South were Ip Man's two daughters. The family refused to collaborate and paid the ultimate price to the unforgiving Japanese.

Ip Man lives in internal exile for his refusal to collaborate. When the world war ends China is in understandable chaos. Eight years of continuous warfare with the Japanese have exhausted the Chinese. A power vacuum opens up and is exploited by the Communists. After the civil war they seize power in 1949 and Ip Man, an ardent nationalist, is forced to flee again — this time to Hong Kong. He has lost everything: his family, homeland, fighting school and profession.

Gong Er also flees China after the Communist takeover and becomes a doctor in Hong Kong, a profession her father always hoped she would undertake.

They meet again by chance, or perhaps Ip Man has intentionally sought her out, having heard she too was living in Hong Kong. It's clear what their regard for each other is and may have always been from the very first meeting in 1936. This isn't stated openly but by glances, silences, atmosphere. Ip Man once said of his wife that “she was a woman of few words because she knew their power.” The same applies to Gong Er.

Regard, love, respect, adoration, yet it was not to be. Gong Er was a proud and honourable woman. She vowed before an icon of the Buddha that she would protect the Gong family name and legacy by not marrying and having children, and by giving up martial arts for good. This was her penance, she thought, for the betrayal of her father by Ma San, his disciple. San had been a poor orphan boy whom her father took pity on, raising him, providing for him, teaching him the secrets of his family's tradition of martial arts. But his character had always been self-serving and imperceptive. He learned the techniques of the arts but not the humane philosophies behind them. Gong Er later sought revenge for the betrayal and death of her father, and this she achieved but at considerable cost. In 1940, she defeated Ma San. This sequence is beautifully filmed on a snowy train station platform somewhere in the north of China. She nearly kills Ma San, but he inflicts great internal damage on her as well. It's said in the film that she never recovered from those wounds, turning to opium as a painkiller. Through time she became addicted to it, and her last days in Hong Kong were marred by her almost complete dependence on it.

Two broken lives could not come together to form a union, as much as each clearly wanted it. The farewell scene between them is heartrending.

Gong Er died first (in Hong Kong) in 1952. Ip Man lasted 20 more years, but died there too (in 1972), just seven months before his greatest protégé — Bruce Lee — who also died in Hong Kong. Lost lives, yet their legacy lives on, as Wing Chun is known all over the world as a great martial art.

Finally, a quiet word about the look and sound of the film.

One word for the cinematography (Philippe Le Sourd) — breathtaking. Frame by frame you see the mind of an artist at work (colour, form, design, light, shadows, perspective), his compositions beguilingly beautiful.

The music (percussion based with occasional strings and soft piano interludes) is brilliant as well, a collaborative effort between Shigeru Umebayashi, Nathaniel Méchaly and the renowned Ennio Morricone who by now is timeless and a part of all our cinematic lives.
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