I'm pretty sure I added this back in 2013 and it was still only in the next 25 on my Netflix DVD queue. Fortunately, it's streaming on Tubi (a free streaming service) with ads right now, and if you have more patience than I do, it's coming to Netflix streaming on Sep 26. Ip Man (Tony Leung) is issued a challenge by the Grandmaster of the Northern styles of kung fu, Gong Yutian (Qingxiang Wang) and succeeds him as master. He also receives a challenge from Gong's daughter and true heir, Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang). Unfortunately for their budding romance, the Japanese invasion and occupation of Manchuria happens and Ip finds himself essentially exiled in Hong Kong, unable to return to his family in southern China. He opens a kung fu school of his own and slowly begins rebuilding the legacy of the grandmasters.
I am not as familiar with Wong Kar-Wai as I probably should be. I've never seen any of his films, although at least three of them are in my queue right now. I know his signature is really lush romantic dramas and The Grandmaster seems like a solid example. It was weird for me to see a martial arts movie given the Anna Karenina treatment, but that's totally my fault for being so regimented in my thinking.
I was very excited to see that the fight choreography was by Yuen Woo-Ping but the editing almost ruined it for me. There are a lot of cuts to feet in splashing water, the swing of silk sleeves, and rain bouncing off objects. Pretty, sure, but I'm trying to see some stuntman get his face punched in, dammit. So as a romantic drama, this is definitely some high art but as a biopic or as a martial arts film, I'd rank it much lower than the approximately 400 other Ip Man films.
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