BERLIN â€" This year’s Berlin International Film Festival had one of its flashiest opening-night films in some time with ‘‘The Grandmaster,’’ the eagerly anticipated new movie from the Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai.
Mr. Wong’s 10th feature and his first since the American road movie “My Blueberry Nights†(2007), “The Grandmaster†revolves around the ascendancy of Ip Man, the kung fu master best known as Bruce Lee’s teacher. It’s a story that has been told several times on screen, most recently in popular biopics starring Donnie Yen. But Mr. Wong, an incorrigible romantic stylist, tells it his own way, alternating between melancholic reverie and flurries of choroeographed acion, lingering on moments out of time and the beauty of his stars, Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang.
Mr. Wong is also the president of the Berlinale jury, which includes the actor Tim Robbins, the filmmakers Susanne Bier and Athina Rachel Tsangari, the cinematographer Ellen Kuras and the artist Shirin Neshat.
Earlier this week Mr. Wong, wearing his customary sunglasses and smoking out the window of a hotel room at the Ritz Carlton here, took time out from his busy viewing schedule to discuss “The Grandmaster,†which the Weinstein Company will release in the United States this year. Here are edited excerpts:
Do you have a favorite martial arts or kung fu film
I think “Fists of Fury†is good and also some of the early Shaw Brothers films.
What are the differences between the international version that was shown here and the one that was released in China last month
We have a time limit [for the international version] so it’s 10 minutes shorter. We rearranged a few scenes, especially in the beginning and the end, so the film could be more straightforward and more accessible for international audiences. In the Chinese version there’s an epilogue, and it’s more open in a way.
I understand this is a film you’ve been wanting to make for a long time.
When I was shooting “Happy Together†in Argentina [in 1996], one day we were shooting a scene with Leslie [Cheung] and Tony [Leung] in the train station. I’d walk around to the magazine stands and I was amazed to see Bruce Lee on a cover of a magazine in Buenos Aires â€" meaning they considered him a hero 20 years after he passed away and in such a faraway world.
But that wasn’t really the reason. Around 1999 I watched the home movies of the grandmaster Ip Man, shot, three days before he died by his son in his living roomâ€" you can see he’s over 70, very weak, in his pajamas, with his grandchild, and he’s doing a demonstration. His son told me that one morning he called up and said, “I want you to make a record of this.†And he did a demonstration of the 108 combinations, the core of the Wing Chun technique. It wasn’t until the end when he put his hand on his tummy â€" the camera doesn’t catch his face but you can tell from his back that it’s agonizing.
He’s too weak or too sick or he’s simply forgotten how, and to me that moment is very moving. There’s a Chinese concept about carrying on the fire â€" at the end of the Chinese version I have one scene in a temple, an amazing 1,400-year-old temple, totally in clay and well preserved, and there’s one shot where all the lights are lit.
That’s the reason I wanted to make this film â€" it’s about this generosity, the responsibility to pass on this fire. And that’s why I don’t call this film “Ip Man†but “The Grandmaster.â€! It’s r! eally about the path of a grandmaster and the quality of a grandmaster.
Could you say a bit about your research process for this film
I spent two years on research, going through books, magazines, archives, photos. The film is not just about one person but about a force, a period, the golden time of modern martial arts history. But I realized it’s more than that, you can’t just know this way of thinking without meeting the people who teach it. After “My Blueberry Nights,†I spent three years on the road. Starting from Beijing I went from town to town to interview hundreds of masters.
Today in China martial arts is considered more of a sport â€" they’ve combined all the schools into one form, and there’s no teachers and students, but more like coaches and athletes. The structure is different and the philosophy is different; some people consider it like yoga, something good for health. ut in the classic sense, the difference between martial arts and sport is that it’s a weapon, something to defend yourself and a skill that can kill. When you have a chance to meet these martial artists, you realize that the more established the masters, the more humble they are â€" they’re very cautious about passing on this skill because they know it’s a lethal weapon.
Do you see “The Grandmaster†as a genre film
I wouldn’t call this a kung fu film â€" it’s more like “Once Upon a Time in Kung Fu.†On the first night, when I introduced the film, I said to the audience, “If you are a hard-core kung fu fan, this is a film for you. But if this is your first kung fu film, even better.†If the kung fu genre is not your cup of tea, then it’s about time for you to change. This film is not about only kicks and punches, because it’s about two generations of martial artists and their philosophies. Some of them are ! real figu! res, who stood up for their principles through the most difficult times of their country. I think it’s a film that could show an audience more about China, as opposed to just martial arts.
This is the second time you’ve been jury president at a major film festival. You headed the Cannes jury in 2006 [when Ken Loach’s “Wind That Shakes the Barley†won the Palme d’Or] â€" is this experience any different
I always tell the jury members the same thing, which is that we’re not here to judge films. We’re here to champion the films we really believe in, and that are really important for the time.
