After what seems like an eternity of waiting, the full-length trailer for Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmasters is finally here, and just like everything else the director has done it's one gorgeous piece of work. We've seen a number of photos and some brief footage of furious rain-drenched fighting, but now we've got that and so much more.
The film is a biopic on the life of Ip Man, the legendary Wing Chun master who helped train Bruce Lee amongst others. His story has been chronicled many times before, most notably in the Donnie Yen-starring Ip Man flicks, but as great as they are they don't seem to have quite the majesty this appears to have. Tony Leung stars as Ip Man, with Zhang Ziyi co-starring, and in between the beautifully shot slow-motion fights we see flashes of passion between them. Yeah, this looks awesome in just about every way.
Not that the two films are aiming for the same goal, but it's interesting to see the differences between this martial arts epic and RZA's The Man with the Iron Fists. Obviously, Kar-Wai is a much more experienced filmmaker, and his adaptability going from romances to kung fu and maintaining that polished, poetic look is pretty remarkable.
The Grandmasters opens in China on December 18th, and hopefully we'll start hearing about a U.S. date soon....
