Just got out of the premiere for The Grandmaster... Zhang Ziyi sat one seat away from me and Cung Le was in the house..
I liked it a lot more than Can did. I knew what to expect from a Wong Kar Wai film I guess.
I was disappointed with how traditionally fake the choreography was, which made me feel cheated as Wong had said they were only going to choose moves that could be applied in real life. Obviously the movie ends up moving more like Naruto at times than it ever does real life.
Wasn't a surprise that the movie would look beautiful in many scenes, or that it would feel unfocused and at odds with what it's actually trying to be. I mean that's wong kar wai, the dude isn't a storyteller by nature. But ultimately the movie simply felt like it didn't have much of anything to say, and its characters feel mostly empty and shallow.
Hong Kong cinema likes to run shit into the ground, and Ip Man is their latest toy to ruin. The first Ip Man with Donny Yen albeit having much lower production values, lesser quality actors and a director with none of the flair of Kar Wai, was a much more accomplished story with a much more accomplished character arch.