Why not a serious biography on the man's actual life?
This Grandmaster movie is pure fiction and looks ridiculous.
-----------------
The "critics" are corrupt totalitarians. Don't follow them. Think for yourself!
Check out the Ip Man movies.... They're pretty good, and no where near as fantastical as this movie
shareAre you kidding me? Wong did 10-year research on martial arts and Ip Man. Those Ip Man movies you recommend are full of fictional characters and stories!
shareAren't there also fictional characters in Wong's film? I was under the impression that Gong Er was fictional.
My blog with film news, reviews, and essays:kinopravda23.blogspot.com
[deleted]
All Yip Man movies so far (except for maybe Ip Man: The Final Fight) are as fictitious as they come, only containing few details on the man's actual life. Out of all these, WKW's movie is the most fictitious.
And dead@WKW's movie being "better" because he did a 10-year research on martial arts. The disadvantage the martial arts depicted here have is that they don't truly represent wing chun the way the original two did. The movie's action director, Yuen Woo Ping, hasn't got broad knowledge on the art and the way to shoot it for films like Sammo Hung (action director of the earlier movies and a wing chun expert).
1.
Gong Er is a fictional character, but there's a woman like Gong Er in Ip Man's life. It's quite a story. The fictional part in the movie is her martial arts background and noble personality. WKW said Gong Er is like the image of "Old Wulin" (you know what it means if you know Chinese). What WKW did here is to combine his impression of "Old Wulin" with the affair in Ip Man's life, so he created the character Gong Er.
2.
Officially, Tony Leung's Shifu (master) is Ip Chun (Ip Man's son). He's trained in person by Duncan Leung (one of Ip Man's most influential disciples). During his training, he fought with Ip Chun's other disciples every day for three years.
Both Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang mentioned in their interview that they always looked for their trainer's approval of any fight scene. Basically, when they finished one fight scene, they would both look at their trainers instead of Yuen Woo Ping. Though action director is Yuen Woo Ping, their trainers/masters also have the final say of if a fight scene is authentic.
Well, like I said the movie contains elements of Yip Man's actual life. They don't make out a large portion of the overall content as the story for the most part is fictional. If we're going to compare this to the first two then it's safe to say that the latter two, while mostly fictional too, at least have more linear and straight-to-the-point storylines as far as Yip Man's real time-line.
I'll give Tony Leung credit for working hard to be a competent onscreen fighter for the role but his performance was too artificial opposed to Donnie's overall natural and thorough skills in practical martial arts. But if anything, I fault Yuen Woo Ping for the way he interpreted and shot the wing chun choreography. He has tackled wing chun before on a movie called Wing Chun but the ironic thing is that it doesn't contain much wing chun at all. In this movie, he does practically the same thing. The movie may have had wing chun consultants on set, but in the end of the day it's always the action director that has the final say on the overall choreography, camera set-ups, and changes. Being a long-time viewer of Yuen Woo Ping's work, I can spot many of his usual choreography traits - combined with WKW's visual flair - that spoiled what could've otherwise been authentic wing chun. Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung did a much better job staging and portraying authentic wing chun for their Yip Man movies.
The original poster asked and I suggested, and as the Wife of a Wing Chin Kung Fu instructor I'm pretty sure there has been more than 25 years of research on this topic that has occurred in my home. My husband whom will be traveling to China with Grand Master William Cheung in a few months happens to find them to be fairly reputable (as with all things Hollywood and film oriented nothing is ever adapted as truthful as they should be), however he was very excited to hear that this movie was coming out but was immediately put off by the fantasy feel to the movie much like the unrealistic nature of movies like crouching tiger hidden Dragon. As with all things in life "to each their own" but like I said earlier I simply suggested other movies for this poster to view.
shareAt least The Grandmaster didn't leave out the part about Ip Man's two daughters dying and him being separated from his family.
shareI wish someone would make a good movie about Bruce Lee.
Really didn't appreciate the Dragon movie.
A movie like Grandmaster would be awesome.
What would be epic if Tony Leung would play Ip Man again in it.
----
What kind of beast couldn't get along with a precious little girl like this?
why cant u show us .
remember,movie is movie , life is life.
and this is a great movie which u just cant understand .
Because Ip Man led uninteresting life, and if he didn't teach Bruce Lee for just two years, nobody would ever know about him.
________________
like hell