The Grandmasters

The Grandmasters

Music video or Postcard Flick book like, The Grandmasters is no doubt the most beautiful film we've ever seen. A little bit too much of William Chang perhaps? But don't get me wrong. Chang's esthetic package(Production design, Costume and Editing) was plainly pleasant only if we can see more of Wong Kar-Wai's usual curio self. If you are not stranger to Wong Kar-Wai's love story, if his breaking slow motion is not too much of bother, you will definitely fall in love with this film, savoy every single bite, dream with each single frame and sorrow for each spoken or unspoken text, then interrupted a couple of times by a tacky piece of piano and soon forgiven thank to Yuen Woo-Ping's biblical choreograph heartfelt work which will sure multiply a lot more martial art population from around the world.

Indeed the opening rain fight was expectably jaw dropping; the encounter between Mr. Ip and Miss Gang was surprisingly sensual which leads us to Wong's classic trance of In the Mood for Love and Days of Being Wild. Yes. Like 2 pieces of the same magnetic pole, the excitement of the unachieved love magnet tension in the past became the regret at present state. They're far apart from each other by Tolstoy's snowy train ride distance and time, with their own family responsibilities and grinds, disconnected by the historic background of Japanese invasion ... Wong's abyss of love, his reincarnation and his Sisyphus hard work are again legend him in the history of cinema.

Beside of that disgrace piano piece, the music was in general beautifully moody as always and the atmosphere created by Wong can even reach the 5D sense of the chill on the platform, the warm lamp, women's perfume in grandmasters' meeting room or even smell the love when Mr. Ip and Miss Gang meet, but the best of all was actually the out of nowhere or perhaps the prelude of a sequel character played by the long time underrated Chang Chen (it happened before with Tony Leung in "Days of Being Wild"), who's veteran influenced by Wong and many years of intense martial art training payed off and valued him on all counts. His remarkable confidence and powerful acting style leaves us an endless imagination to prolong the dream that Wong has started.