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Blu-ray Review: “The Final Master” Is A Visually Stunning Masterpiece Despite Being A Bit Convoluted For The Martial Arts Film Novice

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A Wing Chun master has to defeat 8 martial arts schools to open his own school, yet he has become a chess piece to the local power dynamics.

I cannot feign knowledge or even a slight familiarity with the bulk of martial arts films. I only recently discovered the “Ip Man” films and was practically forced to watch via A Clockwork Orange method. But something must have stuck because my aversion toward these types of films has mellowed a bit and I can even find myself admiring the choreography, appreciating the art form without truly understanding the art itself. Xu Haofeng’s “The Final Master” is dazzling to my neophyte eyes, with dizzying fight scenes, gorgeous and intriguing costume designs, and impeccable cinematography. And the musical score was pretty epic too. While these factors definitely make “The Final Master” worth watching, there were drawbacks.

Truth be told, I had to watch “The Final Master” twice, and even after the second viewing, I was still foggy on details. In part, and this is not a strike against the film itself but rather I suppose a technical flub, is that the subtitles flash across the screen at lightning speed. I repeatedly missed what seemed like paragraph long sentences, full of pertinent information, simply because they were on for a split second. And while I may be a novice to this particular genre, I am not, however, a novice when it comes to foreign films and subtitles as a whole. But even with my subtitle drama, I don’t think they are entirely to blame. “The Final Master” is a film just shy of 2 hours, but feels like 4 hours in need of an intermission every 15 minutes. While its beauty kept me captivated enough, the story was too convoluted for me to be fully engaged. I couldn’t “feel” the story, I didn’t care about any of the characters, and it took a second viewing plus a detailed synopsis reading for me to realize that shit didn’t pan out for anybody in that film. It was totally lost on me.

Here’s what I could surmise: There’s a man, Grandmaster Chen (Liao Fan), who is the last surviving practitioner of Wing Chun. His end goal is to set up a Wing Chun martial arts school to honor his former master. He sets his sights on the city of Tianjin, notorious for having a serious martial arts culture. But of course, he can’t simply roll up and stake his claim. He meets up with an eclectic Master Zheng (Chin Shi-Chieh) who is a board member Tianjin Martial Arts Committee. Master Zheng digs Chen’s Wing Chun and decides to help him in his goal by laying out a master plan. And this isn’t an overnight plan, Chen has to be in it to win it because the plan takes years to muddle through. Essentially Chen needs a woman and a disciple. He needs to establish himself within the city before he tries to challenge or stake his claim for a school. And he himself cannot directly challenge any of schools, which is why he chooses a disciple, a student, Geng Liangchen (Song Yang) to train to challenge the schools within Tianjin. And for a wife he strategically chooses a social pariah, knowing she has no other prospects, but Zhao Guohui (Song Jia) is willing as long as she has the choice to get out of the marriage as soon as Chen achieves his goal.

Beyond these basics is where things get foggy. The plan goes swimmingly until it doesn’t. There’s a Master Zou (Jiang Wenli) (also known as the Madame), who has the confidence and cunning that I’d kill for (and dresses fiercely), who apparently isn’t pleased with Master Chen and his desire to open up a school and does what she can to foil the grand plan. Betrayals, communication breakdowns, epic fight scenes, and a large dose of bad luck is what follows.

I wish I didn’t have to watch the film twice to still only grasp so little. I don’t want to knock the film entirely because I partially blame my unfamiliarity with the genre, and if anything, “The Final Master” was visually engaging and I encourage enthusiasts and laymen alike to check it out. I’m sure there are plenty of people who can suss it out with far less turmoil than I experienced.

Now available on Blu-ray & DVD

 

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