With
The Master, Xu Haofeng continues his personal journey through the spirit and traditions of martial arts which has characterized all his work as a writer and film-maker.
The story takes place at the start of the last century, during a period of époque-marking changes for China. Chen Shi, who has inherited the renowned martial arts school Wing Chun in Canton, arrives in Tianjin planning to make the dream of his dying master come true: to open a school in the town that is the mecca of martial arts, despite being under the control of the Italian state.
The conditions imposed by the arrogant martial arts community in Tianjin for him to be allowed to open his new school is that one of his disciples must beat at least half the local schools in formal combat.
Encouraged by the eminent Zheng Shan’ao – one of the main exponents of the local community, who pretends to be his friend and advisor – Chen marries the local beauty Zhao Guohui, as if to crown his intentions of setting up roots in the town. He then finds a local boy, Geng Liangchen, who he puts through a rigorous training programme to prepare him for the challenge with the other schools.
But he suddenly finds out that, if he loses, Geng will be banished from his hometown for life, while one of Zheng Shan’ao’s disciples – a professional in the republican army – is preparing for the final combat without respecting the codes of honour of martial arts.
At this point, Chen realises that he has been manipulated in an intense battle for local power in a community that is not only losing its discipline but also faith in itself; he has to decide if it is more important to do the right thing or keep his promise…
The central theme of the film is the difficulty in safeguarding the system of values that underlies the philosophy of martial arts in a world that is rapidly changing and in which concepts like tradition, honour and being faithful to your cultural roots are threatened by opportunism and ambition.
The setting of the film in colonial Tianjin provide many comic opportunities – in the Western-style art-deco café, coffee is drunk instead of tea, bread is consumed in place of rice, but in a clumsy manner, as they are not sure how to eat it; people like Zhao Guohui, who have no idea what is going on in the rest of the world, are convinced that the images of the silent film star Rudolph Valentino are of a deity, and so on and so forth.
There are also moments of romance and also homages to the art of film – in a sequence of “film within film”, a martial arts fight is shot; in another scene, a cinema is opened. Jazz is used to great effect in the soundtrack, perfectly paralleling the rhythm of the film, especially the action scene.
The choreography, also by Xu Haofeng awarded at the Golden Horse 2015 for Best Action Choreography, is realistic and never hammy, with close-up combat in which Liao Fan (the star of Black Air, Thin Ice, FEFF 2014) shows incredible dexterity, especially in a sequence in which Chen has to take on a dozen adversaries one at a time.
With his films The Sword Identity and Judge Archer and the screenplay of The Grandmaster co-written with Wong Kar-wai, Xu Haofeng has become a cult director for martial arts lovers. His is a world in which life and martial arts are bound together, complementary, and it is with a vein of regret that the film marks the end of an era.