The Grandmaster

Directed by Wong Kar-wai

(PG-13)

***

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It feels unfair to label The Grandmaster a martial-arts flick, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. The movie’s Hong Kong–based director is “one of the greatest filmmakers working today,” and he has combined the true story of a kung fu master with “ravishing” fight choreography to create “one of the truly galvanizing cinematic experiences of the year.” Ip Man is best known in the West as Bruce Lee’s instructor, but he remains a legendary figure in China, and Tony Leung is “spot-on” here as a man whose quiet intensity made him unbeatable in hand-to-hand combat, said Scott Bowles in USA Today. When it’s not overselling its hero’s mystic depths, The Grandmaster “takes martial arts and turns it into a spectacular dance.” Only one fighter does defeat Ip Man, a beautiful woman played by Zhang Ziyi in a performance “so luminous that I considered myself lucky to be alive” just to be watching her, said Tony Norman in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Grandmaster may be “more poetic reverie than traditional biopic,” but that “doesn’t detract one iota from the movie’s power.”