The Final Master (2016)

Pretty Good

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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).

Chen Shi, the master travels from Canton north to Tianjin, in hopes of opening a school. He takes himself a wife for cover. He is the last master of the Wing Chun knife fighting method. In order to open a school, he must train an apprentice to defeat 8 masters of the 19 schools. Now for the part I didn't grasp. Because the person who defeats the masters brings dishonor to the city, he must die or leave the city which is why Wing Chun doesn't fight himself. It didn't cross over culturally, but was interesting to have a peak inside China 1930's.Lots of fighting with knives and sticks. Watched it in Chinese with English subtitles.

The Final MasterThis martial arts movie based on the fighting style of Wing Chun. Now going into this movie I saw the trailer and thought 'oh cool they'll use weapons instead of just punching and kicking.' Yeah the whole entire movie is based off of dagger fighting.Chen Shi, played by Fan Liao, has to defeat eight martial arts schools to open his own. He fears that he's growing too old and decides to set up a betrayal, matchstick-men style. Only this time, with daggers. He was very believable and his martial arts is up there with some of my favorites. Zhao Guihui, played by Jia Song, is a part of the chess game that the main character is playing. She is strong and adamant about not leaving her home town. She can be a bit over the top with her acting. Plenty of silent harrumphing, if I could sum up her performance. Master Zou, played by Wenli Jiang, looks like a man at first. Then she speaks, and then on closer look she actually looks good. She does a wonderful performance as a local mob(?) boss? She works for the military? Her role in the movie was sort of implied. She even says in the movie "I'm not a gangster." which is something a gangster would say.Speaking of context, the movie loves to see if your paying attention. Little scenes like: Chen Shi is leaving being escorted out by nameless guards. He looks back for a moment. Turns to walk out. Immediately he turns around again and rushes back to the camera. Now revealed he was looking at his wife, Zhao Guihui. He eyes her closely and shouts "Look at me." She looks away. Defeated, Chen Shi walks out of the room. Without knowing everything up until this point, this scene without any context is short and still a lot is spoke. This being a subtitled film, it's almost destined to not do well in the states. The fact that the film is on the level of Christopher Nolan, when it comes to subtext, means it'll be even more confusing for the movie going audience.Verdict: If you want to see martial arts, pick up The Raid, Ip Man, or Ong-Bak. Once you've seen all of those, perhaps give this a chance.

I could not disagree more with the reviewer who calls this a "laughable" movie. I did not see the whole movie, only the fight scene where the main character uses his Bart Cham Dao to defeat his challengers. Of course the movie is "choreographed". All martial arts movies are, and especially this one where nothing but real blades are used could not be filmed otherwise.The choreography is probably the best I have seen in the entire series of "Ip Man" movies. I have never seen a fight scene involving the Wing Chun double blades that had better timing and more realistic techniques and exchanges than this one. Over-dramatized? Of course. That's what martial arts movies are all about. But here it was done in a credible way that leaves you with the impression that the actors actually know what they are doing and have practiced for a long time in real life.