The Final Master (2016)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Poor writing, pretentious, lack of resolution. The only worthwhile scene from this film is the alley fight. Reviewers lauding t his film as some sort of modern martial arts rebirth are grasping at straws.

This is an incredibly underrated and unheard-of film. The Kung fu scenes are amazing as is the philosophy behind the fighting which is never really shown in movies. Go watch it to gain insight into the art of Kung fu. (Underrated Chinese move).

"The Final Master" (or just 'Master', as the 'Shīfu' of the original title means) is an interesting martial arts movie, with great atmosphere, camera work and music, but not so good action.The story is simple. Here we have a Wing Chun master (must all kung fu masters have to be Wing Chun masters?; oh, well...) that wants to open a school in Tianjin. He just can't do it, so he decides to choose a random guy from the streets, and teach him his art. The plan is that the apprentice may go and fight masters from other schools, and when he defeats over 8, the master can open his own school. However, then the apprentice will have to be sacrificed so the other schools don't lose face...The story is not very complicated, but Haofeng Xu's direction goes for moody and atmospheric, a very specific camera work and edit, with short cuts and a little bit tongue-in-cheek style, not so common on martial arts movies. It perfectly suits the movie, and makes it have a very interesting tinge.Sadly, the action doesn't deliver as it should. It may be realistic (I am not an expert on this kind of knife fighting), but it doesn't grip the viewer as it could. It just looks a little bit fake, and the fights lack some energy. There is not much originality in the movements, the locations or the pace of the fights, and they don't have as much tension as they should. That lack of tension becomes more and more clear as the ending gets closer."The Final Master" will be enjoyed by martial arts fans, but it feels like a half-baked effort.

First, this isn't a typical wirefu flick with a simplistic plot that centers around the theme of vengeance or political intrigues involving evil eunuchs.It is about honour, reputation of the martial arts schools, the social and changing political climate of early century China. There aren't really good or evil parties, there is tradition and resignation towards the impending militarization of China, the real emerging power at work.The film is thus alternately more realistic in the absence of the usual outlandish plot line and yet still not quite believable in those "1 vs 100" fight scenes that are typical of this genre, though the gore and death count are respectfully, authentically low. The fighting is filmed without wires, CGI or camera gimmicks, they aren't as stunning as a Yuen Woo Ping choreographed sequence, but I enjoyed the more realistic style of fighting throughout. Authentic details such as how judges mark the pugilists in competitions in the old days are also eye-opening and much appreciated for the knowledge aspect.I gave it a higher rating because of the wry humour, cryptic dialogue that reveals more complex persona and histories behind the characters. The sparse "Northern" way of filming is more abstract and evocative. I hope the English subtitles do not confuse or disappoint as the narrative is interesting .