Released: January 2019(China)
Director: Cheng Si-Yu
Not Rated
Run Time: 74 Minutes
Distributor: Hi-YAH!/Well Go USA
Genre: Action
Cast:
Dennis To: Huo Yuanjia
Zhuang Han: An Bei
Li Ruoxi: Lady Wang
Naomen Eerdeni: Takeda
There was a time when the martial arts film scene was dominated by the Far East. Specifically, China. There’s a reason for that. No other country has such a wide variety of martial arts styles. You’ve southern styles like Wing Chun, Choy Lee Fut, and Hung Gar, while the north has Northern Praying Mantis, Baguazhang, and Tai Chi. That’s not including the multiple animal styles as well as Wushu. When it comes to martial arts movies, China has a lot of history to draw from with folk heroes like Wong Fei Hung and Beggar Su. But the West really didn’t know about all these different movies until Jackie Chan exploded on to the scene with movies like Police Story. But it wasn’t until Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that the West saw the real beauty of Kung Fu movies and what they brought to the table. China had dominated the scene for over 30 years. Unfortunately, the last decade or so saw a major decline in the quality of Kung Fu movies. Unless it involved Donnie Yen or Sammo Hung, the quality of films was up in the air. A lot of this was due to the Chinese government’s more direct influence of their film industry, deciding to move further away from their traditional martial arts movies and instead embracing a more MODERN take on action movies. With movies like Kung-Fu League, Ip Man: Awakening, and Unity of Heroes, China lost its footing with martial arts movie fans, myself included. With other countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia stepping up to the plate, it became clear that Chinese superiority in the action film scene was longer there. Well, we just got ourselves a new movie called The Grandmaster of Kung Fu, starring Dennis To. You know what? It’s pretty decent, actually.
The Grandmaster of Kung Fu stars Dennis To as the legendary Huo Yuanjia, a Chinese martial artist who was known for defeating multiple foreign fighters in public matches. The movie sees Huo Yuanjia initially competing to take the leadership of a well-known martial arts school. The group of masters are then confronted by a contingent of Japanese soldiers who believe that Japanese martial arts are superior to the Chinese way of fighting in every aspect. With Japan taking control of China, Huo Yuanjia, along with other martial artists aren’t standing by when their way of life is being threatened. Movies dealing with foreign invaders is pretty on par with a lot of what’s been coming out of Hong Kong lately. They’ve been using those story-lines for decades, but the nationalism in this films has never been as “in-your-face” as they have in the past decade. That said, the story in this film is pretty standard. Like the Ip Man movies, the film-makers take a real-life figure and they build a fictional story around him, which happens every where. It’s nothing new under the sun. What I like about the story here isn’t necessarily the details, but rather how streamlined it is. This movie moves at a very quick pace. It has to, because it’s only 74 minutes long. As a result, there’s no real room for character development. Not for the hero and not for the villains. There is something to be said for simplicity in action movies and The Grandmaster of Kung Fu is as simple as it gets. That’s not really a bad thing, though.
Like I said before, for the longest time, China has had some of the best action film-making in the world. Sadly, over the past decade, up-and-coming film-makers in Hong Kong seem to have learned the wrong lessons when it comes to filming action. A lot of the more recent Kung Fu flicks have resorted to shaky-cam, extreme close-ups, and hyper-fast editing. They’re not giving the action room to breathe, nor letting the audience see what’s going on. When these things happen, it’s usually because the fight choreography isn’t that good. If you have faith in your fight choreographer, you allow the camera to be able to sit still and allow the audience to see the action unfold. Seeing the wrong kind of action film-making in a Kung Fu movie is really perplexing to me, and I wish they would stop. It’s not edgy, it’s not cool, it glorifies incompetency and cements the wrong kind of mentality. Thankfully, The Grandmaster of Kung Fu sidesteps a large amount of these issues. It’s not perfect, and I wouldn’t call it a return to form, but it’s a step back in the right direction. There’s more wire-work than I think there should be, but we can see what’s happening, and I’m okay with that. There is clearly talent involved here. Dennis To himself is a martial arts expert, but he’s also turned out to be a good actor. I really like his turn as Yuanjia in this movie. He brings the presence and physicality that the character needs. Everybody is okay, but this is Dennis To’s show. There’s no fight scene here that’s going to be remembered as iconic, I can tell you that right now, but the stuff here is actually pretty decent, and that’s more than what I can say for something like Kung Fu League.
I’ve drifted away from Hong Kong’s action movies for a while now, for the specific reason I already mentioned. But that doesn’t mean they can’t do better. The Grandmaster of Kung Fu is better. Not that it’s a really high bar these days, but it is a major improvement over what Hong Kong put out recently that wasn’t with Donnie Yen or Sammo Hung. I’m always game for a great martial arts flick. Whether that comes from the West or the East, it doesn’t matter. If it’s good, I’ll sing its praises from the highest mountain. If if sucks, well…there’s other stuff out there. The Grandmaster of Kung Fu isn’t great. I wouldn’t even call it all that good, but it’s a decent way to spend 74 minutes, and that’s what matters. I hope that film-makers in China don’t continue to make the mistakes they have made by replicating the mistakes that WE have made in film-making. There’s a lot of great up and coming talent in China, and I seriously hope they get the chance to prove it.