‘The Grandmasters’ delayed until 2013; new character posters released

 

 Sina:

Directed by Wong Kar-wai, featuring an all-star ensemble of Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Zhao Benshan, Xiao Shenyang and Song Hye-kyo, the film ‘The Grandmasters’ released four new posters today. The posters show four of the lead actors ‘smashing’ through waves. Also revealed on the posters was the new release date of the movie, which is now set for January 8, 2013.

The four new posters depict Tony Leung fighting in Wing Chun style, Zhang Ziyi fighting in baguazhang style (eight trigram palm), Chang Chen using bajiquan (eight extremities fist), and Zhao Benshan using xingyiquan (shape boxing). All four actors display their clans’ special moves as they attempt to split the waves. Water appears to splash everywhere and the chill in the air is evident. The coldness also seems to seep into their faces making them appear domineering. As compared to previous years, the lineup for this year’s lunar holiday films appear to be more competitive. Due to the fierce competition predicted at the box office, ‘The Grandmasters’ has readjusted their release date to January 8, 2013 (prior to the lunar new year).

Wong Kar Wai began filming his first movie ‘As Tears Go By’ in 1988. Next year will be his 25th year as a feature film director. ‘The Grandmasters’ will be his 10th release (excluding Eros, which was a joint project with Michelangelo Antonioni and Steven Soderbergh). However, ‘The Grandmasters’ is also the film he has spent the most time preparing for. Regarding the decision to release the movie the towards end of the (Western) New Year holiday, the spokesperson from the distribution company Sil-Metropole Organisation, says, “This movie incorporates many years of hard work from director Wong and all of his cast. From that point of view, we would like to give him more space to bring his entire vision to fruition. This is the kind of respect we’d like to give to these directors.”

 http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2012-11-27/08583797336.shtml

‘The Road To The Grandmasters’ documentary and a new poster are released

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3SZUobEuao]

(click to enlarge)

 Wong Kar-wai, Bajiquan master Wang Shiquan, Frankie Chan (back),  Xingyiquan master Fu Yangquan 

Sina:

The trailer for Wong Kar-wai’s ‘The Grandmasters’ was released earlier this week. Yesterday,  a new film poster and a documentary called ‘The Road To The Grandmasters’ were also released for the audience to get an understanding of the production. In the newly released poster, lead actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Ip Man has his back to the camera faithfully worshipping and displaying a dutiful and traditional aura and spirit. In the documentary, Wong Kar-wai talked about how this film started for the first time, when he saw a video three days before Ip Man’s passing deeply moved him and gave him the inspiration to make the movie.

The documentary revealed that the idea of making ‘The Grandmasters’ started in 1996 when Wong Kar-wai was working on ‘Happy Together’ in Argentina. He saw a  local magazine with Bruce Lee on its cover and felt that the superstar’s influence on the world. Yet because the Bruce Lee story has already made many times, he wanted to explore Bruce Lee’s master Ip Man more and how he turned Bruce Lee into a legendary figure.

Under the introduction of Wu Bin, (China’s national wushu coach and Jet Li‘s master), over the course of three years Wong Kar-wai visited Beijing, Tianjin, Xian, Hebei, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Taiwan, Guangdong, Hong Kong and other locations and over 100 different kung fu masters of Wing Chun, Eight Diagram, Tai Chi, Xingyi, Tongbei in order to find the spirit and the philosophy behind kung fu. The video mentioned that and how some of the martial art masters have now passed away and were unable to watch ‘The Grandmasters’ in its entirety; during the process Wong Kar-wai was determined to bring back an era from one person and one street.

‘The Road To The Grandmasters’ not only showed Wong Kar-wai’s filmmaking process but also included the training of Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen.

Normally looking frail as a bookworm, Tony Leung can be seen jumping rope, practicing with wooden stacks in the video and sparring with the stunt team. Once breaking his arm during practice, Tony Leung truly gave his all in his training. He did not just rely on looks and action poses to be convincing as a kung fu master because director Wong Kar-wai asked all actors to “get inside the characters’ bones”. Aside from Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi is shown during her practice screaming from the split that the master asked her to perform and Chang Chen screaming in pain from stretching with the master. For 3 actors, willpower was the greatest training.

Tony Leung was Wong Kar-wai’s only choice to play Ip Man. Wong Kar-wai said, “I want to remove everything that Tony Leung had and shape him anew into another person.” He invited Ip Man’s final disciple Leung Siu-hung to teach Tony Leung the ways of Wing Chun. Master Leung had high praise for Leung. “To someone who has never studied martial art, Mr. Leung has a lot of potential. When you teach him a set, he understands what follows and kills three birds with one stone. He has this kind of potential and the material to learn kung fu.”

Tony Leung’s three years of training was also unveiled for the first time in the documentary. He said, “The director and I hope through the training process to experience the personality of a true martial artist, from which to shape a master image that has both flesh and blood.” With the upcoming film release, Tony Leung said that he was not nervous. He only hoped that viewers would not watch this film with just the idea of watching an Ip Man movie, because anyone who knew Wong Kar-wai knew that he definitely had his own way to innovate and open everyone’s eyes. 

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2012-11-16/09563789215.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3SZUobEuao

New stills for ‘The Grandmasters’

A couple of new promotional stills for Wong Kar-wai‘s upcoming martial arts film The Grandmasters have been released. 

Tony Leung with slicked-back  hair and punching has an extremely cool look, the fruit of his two years of Wing Chun training  has not gone to waste. Tony Leung also thanked director Wong Kar-wai for giving him this chance to play Ip Man. Although the training and the production took a long time, he felt it was completely worth it. Tony Leung said, “To experience a martial art master’s journey of the heart, the best way was to practically train in kung fu. During the training, I was able to experience the character as well as the martial art.”

Working with Tony Leung for the second time in a Wong Kar-wai film, Zhang Ziyi in the film plays an Eight Diagram palm master. Before the shoot she needed to train hard. After working together on 2046, Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi already have built a certain chemistry. This time their scenes together were even more flavorful. Tony Leung said that although he has only worked with Ziyi twice before (they also starred together in Hero), he felt like they have worked on six movies together! Playing Ip Man’s wife, Song Hye-Kyo‘s costume was also unveiled for the first time. She was very spell bounding with her elegant grace.

The Grandmasters will be released on 18 December in China and Hong Kong.

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2012-11-06/11433780894.shtml

New trailer for ‘The Grandmasters’

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEu7bwIh3j8]

The new trailer for ‘The Grandmasters’ has been released as well as some new stills. 

The new film from Wong Kar-wai starring  Tony Leung Chiu-wai in the title role will finally be released this Christmas.  As Ip Man, Tony Leung has numerous fight scenes, one of which he had to fight over ten people in the rain and thoroughly displayed his abilities. Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi had a “fight into an embrace” and a staring scene.

In the trailer, Tony Leung spoke Cantonese while the other actors spoke Putonghua. Other actors like Chang Chen, Song Hye-Kyo, Zhao Benshan, Xiao Shenyang and others were introduced as well.

 

 

 

http://video.sina.com.cn/p/ent/m/c/2012-11-06/000761906039.html

Wong Kar-wai spends his 54th birthday on “The Grandmasters” set

 

Sina:

Director Wong Kar-wai turned 54 on the 17th July. He is currently working on the December release of The Grandmasters (Yut Doi Jung Si) and had to celebrate on the set. Zhang Ziyi posted the birthday celebration photo from the set. 

The Grandmasters is a film that Wong Kar-wai has prepared 13 years for and took almost 3 years to shoot on and off. Viewers who were anxious to see Tony Leung Chiu-wai were worried that the film would never be released and joked that it was “missing for a generation”. In March the film announced its mid December release, but the film is still in “a hurry to wrap up” production.

Criterion to release “In The Mood For Love” on Blu-ray in October

The Criterion Collection has announced the release of the Blu-ray version of Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love (to be released on October 2).

The film will also be available on DVD.

Release Date: 2 October 2012
SRP: $39.95

Synopsis: Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses sparks an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching musical soundtrack and its exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past decade of cinema, as well as a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career.

Disc Features
-High-definition digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bin, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
-@ “In the Mood for Love,” director Wong Kar-wai’s documentary on the making of the film
-Deleted scenes with director’s commentary
Hua yang de nian hua (2000), a short film by Wong
-Archival interview with Wong and a “cinema lesson” given by the director at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
-Toronto International Film Festival press conference from 2000, with stars Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-wai
-Trailers and TV spots
-The music of In the Mood for Love, presented in an interactive essay, on the DVD edition
-Essay by film scholar Gina Marchetti illuminating the film’s unique setting on the DVD edition
-Photo gallery on the DVD edition
-Biographies of key cast and crew on the DVD edition
-Two new interviews with critic Tony Rayns, one about the film and the other about the soundtrack, on the Blu-ray edition
-A booklet featuring the Liu Yi-chang story that provided thematic inspiration for the film, an essay by film critic Li Cheuk-to, and a director’s statement (DVD edition); a booklet featuring an essay by novelist and film critic Steve Erickson and the Liu Yi-chang story that provided thematic inspiration for the film (Blu-ray edition)

http://www.criterion.com/films/198-in-the-mood-for-love

Leaked images of Zhang Ziyi in “The Grandmasters”

Some new images of Zhang Ziyi in “The Grandmasters” have made their way onto the Internet. The images are taken from the five minutes of footage unveiled by Wong Kar-wai at the Cannes Film Festival.

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/c/2012-05-25/07073639603.shtml

And a description of the footage shown, courtesy of AICN:

Also screened was some footage from Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmasters that was quite beautiful. A little girl watches her father practice a deadly martial art called Bogua in a snowy courtyard. Her narration tells us that her father forbade her from watching him train, but she doesn’t and soon their positions are switched as this little girl clumsily tries to mimic her father while he catches her in the act.

At first he looks sad, then resigned, as the voice over explains that her father told her no matter what she attempted in life, she would become the best at it and then we see him training the girl.

Cut to the girl all grown up (Ziyi Zhang) training alone in the snow, much like her father and with the same semi-Force power and grace. Ice cycles quiver as she punches the air, flakes of snow slam into tree bark and the limbs of a cherry blossom shake as she gracefully moves from stance to stance.

Trailer for new WKW short “Dejavu”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY60zkcBhpI]

Chivas Royal Global:

The original luxury Scotch and official partner of the Festival de Cannes, Chivas Regal, unveiled a new, short film called “DEJAVU” at the 65th edition of world’s most famous cinema event. Directed by Wong Kar-Wai, the legendary Chinese director and co-starring famous actor Chang Chen and supermodel Du Juan, the film conveys the century-long legend of Chivas Regal 25 Year Old, via a compelling love story. Shot at the majestic Umaid Bhawan Palace in India.

 

Du Juan at the conference

 

New short film from Wong Kar-wai to premiere at Cannes; plus new poster for ‘The Grandmasters’

Wong Kar-wai will be debuting a new short film at Cannes called ‘Dejavu‘.
Whisky company Chivas Regal commissioned a promotional film from Kar-Wai which will be unveiled Friday May 18 at the festival. Shot at Umaid Bhawan Palace, the film is titled ‘Deja Vu’ and chronicles a romance between supermodel Du Juan and Chang Chen.

http://www.allocine.fr/article/dossiers/cinema/dossier-18613287/

A new poster for ‘The Grandmasters’ was spotted at Cannes: