A Gallery of Rogues is a semi-regular noir/espionage/martial arts fiction blog that will contain reviews of games, books and movies as well as topic articles (Blog Theme and Background Sound: The GrandMaster and Rainy Mood)

The Grandmaster is is a martial arts-drama set in the 1930s-40s and tells the story of the legendary Wing Chun master known as Ip Man, who many people will know was the master and teacher of one Bruce Lee. This movie, directed by the artsy film maker Wong Kar Wai, tells the story from Ip Man's rise to the head of his kung fu school, through Japan's invasion of China during WW2 and ends with him settling and opening a martial arts school in Hong Kong.The film starts with Ip Man competing with rivals to be the next grandmaster of his school of kung fu. He must be tested by the other grandmasters in various duals as well as navigate the political intrigue as each school isn't so friendly to each other and rivalries quickly start to form.

From the get go the one thing that is apparent is that this film looks goddamn gorgeous, whether it's the 12 man battle royal in the rain drenched streets of downtown Foshan or Gong Er practicing the 64 Hands style in the stark snow blanketed wilderness of northern China, man does this film look good. It's not just the setting that makes the film look great but also the masterfully choreographed fight scenes. Each punch or kick thrown has a weight and impact around it but is also graceful and never looks clumsy. Unlike other movies about Ip Man this one clearly embraces the myths surrounding the man and uses it to embellish the fight scenes, nothing too outlandish but just enough to give it a bit more flavour. The standout fight in my opinion is when Gong Er finally get's her showdown with Ma San at the train station, here she truly looks like a master using a mixture of martial arts styles.

This isn't your regular martial arts film though, it's not all about the fighting and there is some fantastic acting and drama here as well. Tony Leung does a fantastic job of portraying the virtuous but cool as ice Ip Man who is trying to look after his family in the harshest of times and Ziyi Zhang steals the show as the prideful daughter of a grandmaster that is trying to bring honour to her school.

The Grandmaster is definitely a great film however it does employ a pretty liberal use of slow motion shots, a few of them are even of things that don't typically warrant such, like a woman singing at a bar or a vista shot. The film does this so much it feels like it adds on 10 extra minutes to the movie. I see this as a small problem though as the even though the shots are lingering it's still pretty to look at.

5 Out of 5 Stars

*****