Wong Kar-wai first tackled a martial arts movie back in 1994's Ashes Of Time, where he upended the traditional wuxia genre with his idiosyncratic brand of elliptical narrative restructuring and emotionally wrought characters. The Grandmaster represents a more traditional approach to filming martial arts action and a more streamlined narrative in part bound by the constraints of the biopic. Yet Kar-wai still manages to infuse his story of the life of Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man - who famously trained a young Bruce Lee - with a melancholic undertoe and moments of tenderness, cutting to the philosophy of his beliefs amidst the flying limbs. Yuen Woo-ping's stunning fight choreography is some of the best work he's ever done, not least the opening rain-strewn street fight and Ip Man's one-to-one fight with the beautiful Gong Er (played by Zhang Ziyi of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame). As with all Kar-wai movies, the period setting is brought to life via some exceptional cinematography and production design.
