im anticipating the grandmasters by wong kar wai, you can do what you like

the contours of the narrative are roughly visible by virtue of simply being a historical story

i mean i can see how WKW probably left a lot of connective tissue out, but it's not very hard to fill it in yourself

this is true, but it's only really possible after the fact. so (for me anyway) i didn't often understand what i was seeing as i was seeing it. but i think that sorta thing is almost common in WKW, at least the post-ITMFL movies.

yeah the rhythm of a WKW movie is sensuous, non-narrative vignettes capped by wistful Tony Leung reminiscences, its like its own tense form

the flip from utter incomprehensibility to complete comprehensibility between the first and second viewing of a wkw movie is almost like black magic

yeah, that's kind of true.

although the 2nd half of the grandmasters seems immediately legible to me, it's the earlier stuff that might be a bit challenging at first viewing.

talking about the american release btw. maybe i'll watch the chinese one this weekend.

i've seen the 130 minute cut and the weinstein cut. the weinstein version makes two major changes - some horrible concessions to american ignorance (in the form of overly literal title cards & narration and the like), and it messes with the structure of the movie to make it more melodramatic. the depiction of Yip Man's relationship with his wife suffers a lot for this - in the 130 minute cut it's treated in that achingly delicate WKW way, but in the american theatrical version a lot of nuance is missing. weinstein's version attempts to build suspense about the fight between Gong Yutian and Yip Man, but in the 130 min cut there are multiple scenes making it clear that Gong Yutian not only expects to lose, he wants to so that he can pass the torch. in the 130 min version the Gong Er scenes set during the war are presented chronologically, whereas in the weinstein cut they take the form of a melodramatic revelation in the final act. in the chinese version Yip Man's scenes with her in Hong Kong are mostly about kung fu and his interest in learning and passing on her family's martial legacy; the weinstein version makes it seem more like he's pursuing a long lost love. and there's a bunch of other, smaller things missing, like a very ITMFL shot of Gong Er whispering into a hole in a wall just before she vows never to marry. (there's a few things added, too, to be fair.)

you know what though? it's an impressive film in either form. i love how seriously it takes kung fu, that it's as willing to end a fight with a broken cookie or a disarming tony leung smile as it is a brutal asskicking. i love that it's really Gong Er's movie, and that the central tragedy of the film is of her potential being strangled and killed by Confucian strictures. (zhang ziyi has the movie's two most powerful moments imo) i even loved the fights and how they were shot, and i'm normally pretty rigid about how i like my fight scenes. i thought the emphasis on foot movement, objects shaken by impact, and kung fu moves that use someones momentum against them was really great and beautiful at times. this film really stuck with me... it's got a lot going for it.

i love that it's really Gong Er's movie

That's a good point. I'm not sure it's completely true -- tho I haven't seen the long version -- but it could or should be true. She's definitely the most interesting character, and she also has the best fight scenes.

Finally saw this (American cut) and pretty much loved it. It's not up there with 2046, but what is, really? Still, it's gorgeous and melancholy, and I loved the fight scenes.

i love that it's really Gong Er's movie, and that the central tragedy of the film is of her potential being strangled and killed by Confucian strictures.

Yes! It's really about kung fu as an art form and the importance of preserving the knowledge of the past, and Gong Er embodies that through failure: missed opportunities, lost knowledge, regret, regret, regret...

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/02/27/william-chang-on-the-art-of-movie-design-2/?mod=WSJBlog

Unghngnhngng I wnat this guy's job

saw the grandmaster last night, seeing it with a saturday night movie crowd was probably a bad idea. but not sure anything would have helped make it any better. you can tell its had harvey weinstein make cuts to it, as its insultingly littered with intertitle screens, which should make it easier to follow, but instead just make the film feel dumber. but then i dont know if the longer cut of this would have been much better either. wong kar wai is becoming a parody of himself really. his style is so mannered on this, its almost like someone doing an imprersonation of his style after watching in the mood for love. far too many slo-mo shots, for no real reason, odd camera placing, which makes no real sense, and looks like a real mess. it has one truly affecting scene at the end, between zhang yiyi and tony leung in terms of something that is very WKW, and a few decent fight scenes, but mostly, its just a mess of a movie. poetic in places, but a fallure as a biopic, a failure as a romance, and worst of all for a film called the grandmaster, just not that memorable as a martial arts movie. in WKWs defence, it made me really hate harvey weinstein. if WKW is to make any more films, he should probably do away with his now very affected style, and just go back to basics (ie no more closeups of raindrops when you actually want to see fighting). he should go anti-style. because this is just silly. and why does tony leung have that hat on so often?

also, for an ipman film, its just stupid that the first intertitle screen in the epilogue is about gong er. and some of the dialogue is just silly (and im someone who genuinely likes the philosophy that you get in martial arts movies).

harvey weinstein should never be allowed to buy any asian films again.

I could never see this film with its so-called 'cuts'.

I've remembered many of the fights throughout the year since I saw it, so I'd say the fights are memorable. Also, this is a wkw-film first and foremost, that it fails at being something else is not that important. Now I really want to rewatch it :)

theyre memorable, sure, but not for anything other than their wkw-ness but why is that always seen as a good thing? i see it as not so much a directorial stamp, but a sign of limitations. this is kind of a problem i have with praising directors for their auteur-ness - critics like spotting the same things in their movies, and directors seemingly like to, or cant help but, give them the same things to spot again and again, leading to a rather ridiculous circle jerk.

No, they're memorable because they are insanely beautiful. Which has a lot to do with their wkw-ness, but nothing to do with a circle-jerk. The train, the snow, the rain, the moment where Leung jumps over Yiyi. They're memorable. I couldn't care less that it isn't the kicks and punches that are particularly memorable.

youre not wrong in that they do have an aesthetic power, but i felt like i was watching a music video or some sort of tv commercial at times, there was something a little too slick about them. the editing was too quick, and the camera positioning meant you were constantly disoriented and not being sure where to look in a way that made me think more of a bourne-style hollywood actioner than something like crouching tiger or hero.

https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/talking-grandmaster-costume-design-with-oscar-nominated-william-chang-193468/

Tl;dr article by David Bordwell here:
http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2013/09/23/the-grandmaster-moving-forward-turning-back/

Which links to something he wrote about ASHES OF TIME REDUX: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2008/12/18/ashes-to-ashes-redux/