The Grandmaster
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: August 23, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
7
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 22, 2013
The Grandmaster is, at its most persuasive, about the triumph of style. When Ip Man slyly asks “What’s your style?” it’s clear that Mr. Wong is asking the same question because here, as in his other films, style isn’t reducible to ravishing surfaces; it’s an expression of meaning. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 26, 2013
In short, I'd be the happiest person in the world if Wong announced there was a four-hour cut of this film somewhere. For now, neither version is perfect, but they’re both so beautiful, so heartbreaking, that the question may be moot. Whatever its flaws, seeing The Grandmaster theatrically, in any version, should be a sacrament for any true film lover — a spiritual duty. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 22, 2013
An exercise in pure cinematic style filled with the most ravishing images, The Grandmaster finds director Wong Kar-wai applying his impeccable visual style to the mass-market martial arts genre with potent results. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 22, 2013
The Grandmaster, may well be the definitive illustration of kung fu in all its arcane schools and intricate styles. There's never been anything like it — a seemingly endless flow of spectacular images in a story about Ip Man (Tony Leung), the legendary kung-fu master who trained Bruce Lee. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezAug 29, 2013
The Grandmaster sets aside traditional story structure in its last 15 minutes and becomes one of the filmmaker’s free-form visual poems, suffused with melancholy and compassion. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 10, 2013
Intermittently action-packed and lethargic, the movie dances around formula. By delivering an expressionistic character study with bursts of intensity unlike anything else in his oeuvre and yet stylistically representative of its entirety, Wong practically has it both ways. Read full review
80
Total FilmKevin HarleyJan 9, 2015
Flawed but often flooring, The Grandmaster swoons with grace, feeling and elegance. With Leung and Zhang on killer form, Wong has delivered his best film in a decade. Read full review
80
CineVueCraig WilliamsDec 2, 2014
It's a film that prompts an overwhelming emotional response as it weaves its dark magic. Read full review
80
EmpireKim NewmanDec 1, 2014
It may not be much more than six of the most imaginatively staged and filmed fight scenes in the cinema, but that’s almost certainly enough to recommend it. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirAug 22, 2013
It’s certainly not Wong’s greatest work; it may be a masterpiece that evades the mass audience or a beautiful failure with moments of greatness. All I know is that I got lost in it, and that I would still have loved it if it were twice as long with half the action. Read full review
80
Film.comStephanie ZacharekAug 19, 2013
This is a story told in shards; Wong is so obsessed with visual details – faces refracted as if in a broken mirror, or fragile arcs of blood being traced out on the pavement by the feet of two feuding kung fu masters – that the story he’s trying to tell is partly obscured by them. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterClarence TsuiFeb 10, 2013
True to Wong’s style, The Grandmaster is infused with melancholy and a near-existentialist resignation to the uncertainties of fate. Read full review
80
VarietyMaggie LeeFeb 10, 2013
Venturing into fresh creative terrain without relinquishing his familiar themes and stylistic flourishes, Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai exceeds expectations with The Grandmaster, fashioning a 1930s action saga into a refined piece of commercial filmmaking. Read full review
75
Washington PostMark JenkinsAug 31, 2013
The director took great efforts to be true to Chinese martial arts, but he did so without sacrificing his own distinctive vision. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 30, 2013
What's on screen in The Grandmaster is off-puttingly disjointed, but it's also dazzling in its startling action and ravishing romance. Read full review
75
Boston GlobePeter KeoughAug 29, 2013
Who knows what they’re fighting about, but given the ecstatic ballet of fists and water, tossed bodies and smashed decor, centered by Leung’s majestic impassivity, it doesn’t really matter. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesBill StametsAug 29, 2013
The elegant style of the fighting sequences does more than display camera and kung fu technique — this style also shows fighters living with honor. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsAug 29, 2013
Whereas many kung-fu movies are a feast that leaves us weary with sensations, the tastefully bittersweet “Grandmaster” puts us in the mood for more. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 23, 2013
Tony Leung plays Ip Man, the real-life kung fu innovator who most famously trained Bruce Lee. His life takes in the upheavals in China from the 1930s through the ’50s, including the Japanese occupation. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSteven BooneAug 23, 2013
The Grandmaster is a drunken love letter to experience, which helps us survive, and wisdom, which helps us face aging, loss and, ultimately, the abyss. Wong, who was called the coolest director in the world when he was much younger, is now 57. This film is about a man like him, who has proven himself in the world and enters mid-life exuding a new, sage kind of cool. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. MusettoAug 22, 2013
Wong extracts magnetic performances from his two stars, and Philippe Le Sourd delivers gorgeous cinematography. Read full review
75
USA TodayScott BowlesAug 22, 2013
An historical opus that is equal parts ballet and biography, though the second component pales in comparison with the first. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbySep 6, 2013
A superb martial discipline has ended in a commercial movie genre--not the worst fate in the world, but the comic irony of it is of little interest to a director bent on glorification. [9 Sept. 2013, p.90]
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 28, 2013
The U.S. cut, which Wong endorses, runs a slim 108 minutes, and has by all accounts been reshaped for American audiences, who, by and large, don’t have the same foreknowledge of Ip Man, or martial arts, as Asian audiences do. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 21, 2013
At the end of the day, the pesky imperative to convey information is still a driving force; more than anything Wong has ever made, the movie chokes on exposition, its more poetic concerns stifled by its surfeit of plot. Read full review
67
The PlaylistJessica KiangFeb 10, 2013
All of Wong's undeniable visual flair can't conceal the haphazard nature of the story. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyAug 22, 2013
There are sequences in Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s new film, The Grandmaster, that are as gorgeous as anything you’ll see on a screen this year, or perhaps this decade. Read full review
63
ObserverDrew GrantAug 20, 2013
The Grandmaster offers welcome relief from a moviegoing summer spent in sensory overload. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreAug 20, 2013
A regal, majestic and downright arty take on this teacher, champion and philosopher whose life spanned much of the twentieth century. Read full review
63
Slant MagazineChuck BowenAug 12, 2013
The film, more likely to invite comparisons to the writings of Marcel Proust than the previous Ip Man films, is a gorgeous folly that never entirely emerges from its creator's head. Read full review
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