SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

ethanbyrd This is an incredibly underrated and unheard-of film. The Kung fu scenes are amazing as is the philosophy behind the fighting which is never really shown in movies. Go watch it to gain insight into the art of Kung fu. (Underrated Chinese move).

lyx-1 First, this isn't a typical wirefu flick with a simplistic plot that centers around the theme of vengeance or political intrigues involving evil eunuchs.It is about honour, reputation of the martial arts schools, the social and changing political climate of early century China. There aren't really good or evil parties, there is tradition and resignation towards the impending militarization of China, the real emerging power at work.The film is thus alternately more realistic in the absence of the usual outlandish plot line and yet still not quite believable in those "1 vs 100" fight scenes that are typical of this genre, though the gore and death count are respectfully, authentically low. The fighting is filmed without wires, CGI or camera gimmicks, they aren't as stunning as a Yuen Woo Ping choreographed sequence, but I enjoyed the more realistic style of fighting throughout. Authentic details such as how judges mark the pugilists in competitions in the old days are also eye-opening and much appreciated for the knowledge aspect.I gave it a higher rating because of the wry humour, cryptic dialogue that reveals more complex persona and histories behind the characters. The sparse "Northern" way of filming is more abstract and evocative. I hope the English subtitles do not confuse or disappoint as the narrative is interesting .

Yohanes Wimpy The story about Wing Chun master seems will not come to an end in few years to come. The latest is The Master (The Final Master), bring a fictitious Wing Chun last torchbearer, Chen Shi. Xu Haofeng as the scriptwriter, known also for his thrilling fictional side story of Ip Man, The Grandmaster as well as The Sword Identity, once again come with slow pace progressive plot. Unfortunately, the more complex he try to become, the more this movie stranded from clear point of view. Politic and intrigue surely is a modest and common things happens everyday, but Haofeng fail to deliver a gripping story. More than half part of this movie going encircling, dog chasing tail situations. And almost at the end, the story become unraveled. Which means quite frustrating for average viewer. The story fail to grasp the essence of Tao and Buddhism spirit as the foundation of Chinese martial art world.Haofeng seems lack of confident about Wing Chun and Chinese martial art world. Thus, it affects the fighting choreography throughout the movie. Let us back at the moment when Donnie Yen movie, Wu Xia hit the market. Wu Xia was carefully set. Every detail orchestrated from the very beginning to the end. The fighting scenes was so immensely beautiful.Back to Xu Haofeng film, the northern gong-fu poorly resembled. The secret society just like a kids tale. The using of monstrous blade remind me of Sagara Sanosuke's Zanbato in Rurouni Kenshin manga. I can't recall any blade like that in many gong-fu films. As far as I know, the biggest and the longest blade belong to General Guan Yu. For me, that is merely ridiculous rather than fascinating scenes. Not to mention the blade bearer, at their late age, I can't imagine any old person having such a big energy to hold the blade that nearly 2 m tall. Even using both hand, the blade is just too big.While the entire film illustrated in dark and dingy cinematography as a metaphor of how complicated the situations around Tianjin during revolution era, after the fall of Qing dynasty. I personally think, that dark theme is the most favored among many Wuxia movies, thus it is too generic, and lack of characteristic. The Master was also dubious in term of editing. A bit of fast cutting, and at many scenes feel almost static.

lasttimeisaw A screening of Haofeng Xu's latest martial art picture, his fourth feature and the fresh winner of BEST ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY in 2015 Golden Horse Awards, Haofeng, the co-screenwriter of Kar Wai Wong's THE GRANDMASTER (2013), has already manifested his unique philosophy and choreography of wushu since his shoestring budget second film THE SWORD IDENTITY (2011).Although the follow-up JUDGE ARCHER (2012) still hasn't secured a release date in mainland China, THE MASTER undoubtedly is Haofeng's most ambitious and mainstream work to date, with a more bankable cast, lead by Liao as the master Chen, a southern master of Wing Chun, arrives in Tianjin during the beginning of 20th century, trying to open his own Kung-fu school, but there are certain rules he must obey in the flourishing martial art world, he marries Zhao (Jia Song), a sultry waitress in a posh restaurant and recruits a protégé Gen (Yang Song), whom he personally trains to be his stepping stone to astonish the local schools, which is firstly governed by Master Zhen (Jin), whom Chen makes a pact with to attain his goal. But soon he is usurped by the widow Ms. Zhou (Jiang), who burns with ambition and colludes with the warlord Lin (Huang), a former pupil of Zhen, together they vainly attempt to militarise all the Kung-fu schools, whereas Gen and Chen become the last stumbling blocks in their way.What genuinely makes Haofeng's style so distinctive? Visually speaking, it is his idiosyncratic close-combat motion, the fast-moving and rapidly-editing techniques which transform combat skills from being aesthetically elegant (i.e. oriental gravity-defying jumping and flying) to something embedded with ritualistic devotion and awesome mastery, which is unsparingly efficient (sometimes even minimal) and deceivingly realistic, also, a glut of ancient Chinese weapons can maximally pique interest from viewers. On the other hand, thematically speaking, THE MASTER evokes the connotations of "anti-Kung-fu world", a rather bleak take on the conservative and fickle characteristics of these so-called martial artists, their mercenary pursuit trumps the noble idea of passing the knowledge on to their successors, Chen and Gen's master- and-apprentice relation is hinged solely on the former's personal interest, and the latter is a pawn whom he can desert without blinking his eyes, more complicated is his marriage with Zhao, and his rapport with Zhen, there is something pretty dark in Chen's motive to earn his name, yet the villainess Zhou can outsmart him in every step, for her self-seeking purpose though, only one misstep (one cannot overthrow all the formulae of a well-established genre), there is no one in her team can beat master Chen.As a Kung-fu film, THE MASTER has a surprisingly low body count (only 2 major characters die in the film), killing becomes inhuman and utterly unnecessary when paralysing your opponents is sufficient enough to soldier on relentlessly. With an unhurried open ending, the story is far from taking its curtain call while a subsequent cat-and-mouse game is shaping up, Haofeng shows his confidence of a sure-fire sequel in the future. The cast is a shade uneven while veteran players Liao, Jin and Jiang all shine with impressive presences. Still, sometimes the dialogues need a bit more fine-tuning to sound believable under certain contexts, however, one sure thing is that Haofeng Xu has stoutly emerged as one of the most aspiring director radiant with an auteurist flair presently, in the traditional Chinese Kung-fu territory, who is worthy of the admiration from a much larger scale of spectators!