An official full-length trailer for acclaimed director Wong Kar Wai's highly anticipated new film Yut doi jung si a.k.a The Grandmasters (2012) was released today. The film, which chronicles the life of legendary martial arts master Ip Man, is set to open in China on December 18th and in Hong Kong on December 25th.
The Grandmasters stars Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Chang, Song Hye-Kyo, Bruce Leung Siu-Lung, and Zhao Ben-Shan.
The Weinstein Company have the distribution rights for the film in the United Kingdom and Australia, while Annapurna Pictures are in charge with the film's U.S. distribution.
Note: In addition to the new trailer, below we have also included the older teaser for The Grandmasters.
Tony Leung is my favorite Chinese actor. He's no Donnie Yen in terms of physical, martial arts prowess, but it should be interesting to see what kind of interpretation they make with this version of Ip Man. Cinematography looks pretty slick as well, and you can't go wrong with Yuen Woo-ping choreographing. The fights in this trailer look a little too Matrix-y with all the slo-mo/bullet time, but hopefully the actual story elements and writing will be more empathetic than Yen's movies (although, those were really entertaining).
"How many Ip Man movies are they going to make?"
A whole effing lot, if we go by Chinese cinema history and the constant embellishment of the lives of deceased martial arts masters, Huang Fei Hong, Hung Hei Kwoon (sp?), Fong Sai Yuk, Bruce Lee, and many others. I'm just surprised that Wong Kar Wai appears to have made a movie not too far from the other ones we've seen with Donnie Yen. I'm quite okay with that, though.