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Interviews

Berlin Review: Wong Kar Wai's 'The Grandmaster' Is Occasionally Mesmerizing, Mostly Muddled

By Jessica Kiang
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February 7, 2013 2:05 PM
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14 Comments

Reviews

Perhaps the best place to begin a review of Wong Kar Wai’s “The Grandmaster” is at the end -- or a few minutes after. An epilogue of sorts, which happens suddenly and far enough into the credits that maybe half the audience was watching it from the stairs, serves as a pretty representative microcosm of everything that is right about the film, and everything that is not.

By Simon Dang
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June 11, 2012 10:24 AM
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1 Comment

News

As a youth, Ed Zwick must have really enjoyed history class as films with a period setting and/or stories set to the backdrop of war or conflict are a recurring theme in his work. Despite a gear change with "Love And Other Drugs" in 2010, Zwick looks to be returning to his bread and butter with "The Great Wall," a China-set historical epic.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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April 17, 2012 6:53 AM
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3 Comments

News

It's five years since the last film from the great Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai. It's eight since his last Chinese-language film, "2046." And depending on your tolerance for the latter, it's twelve since his last great film, "In The Mood For Love." But Kar-Wai has such a hugely impressive body of work behind him -- from "Ashes Of Time" to "Chungking Express" -- that anything he does will have a fever-pitch of anticipation behind it, and that only seems to get greater the longer he takes with his latest project, "The Grandmaster."

By Joe Cunningham
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April 2, 2012 9:01 AM
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1 Comment

News

Robert Luketic doesn't seem to inspire as much vitriol from fans that the likes of McG or Shawn Levy seem to, but looking at his back-catalogue his cinematic sins aren't inconsiderable. Maybe it's down to his first film, the really rather fun "Legally Blonde," but since then he's made "Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!," "Monster in Law," "21" (which this writer must admit to having a soft spot for), and his latest two films have been the irredeemable "The Ugly Truth" and "Killers," both starring Katherine Heigl.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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December 21, 2011 10:00 AM
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2 Comments

News

The path of John Woo's Hollywood career was a sad and rather depressing one; the acclaimed action filmmaker made his first inroads into English language with "Hard Target," "Broken Arrow" and "Face/Off" but the dumb-but-fun feel of those films soon gave way to the dumb-and-boring vibe of "Mission Impossible II," "Windtalkers" and "Paycheck," and the filmmaker has, for the most part, returned to Asia, where he's rediscovered his mojo thanks to his acclaimed two-part epic "Red Cliff" and period actioner "Reign of Assassins," which he co-directed.

By Simon Dang
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March 20, 2011 1:52 AM
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3 Comments

Financing On Jan de Bont's 'Mulan' Starring Zhang Ziyi Falls ApartProduction on any Wong Kar-Wai film is never simple but his latest effort looks to be taking the cake with the Ip Man biopic "The Grandmasters" reportedly facing even more delays on its already extended production.

By Simon Dang
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November 1, 2010 1:41 AM
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5 Comments

The Best Tagline They Could Come Up With Was 'In Martial Arts There Is No Right Or Wrong: Only The Last Man Standing'?Just yesterday, we were discussing the casting of MMA fighter Cung Le in Wong Kar-wai's Yip Man biopic and ruing the delayed production -- which will reportedly last over 12 months and finish up in 2011 at the earliest -- and the lack of promotional material, which was actually seen bandied around at a paparazzi-caught meeting between Wong and actress Song Hyo-kye.

By Simon Dang
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October 31, 2010 4:04 AM
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1 Comment

Project Won't Finish Shooting At Least Until Early 2011, 'Matrix' Fight Choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping Now InvolvedVietnamese-American Mixed Martial Arts fighter Cung Le has evidently joined the cast of Wong Kar Wai's still in production biopic on Bruce Lee mentor Yip Man, "The Grand Master."