Wong Kar-wei《The Grandmasters》Moive Documentary "I think those grandmasters are someone who not only good at martial arts,but also have very high moral standard. "
--Yip Chun (Yip Man's Son)
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 documentary revealed that the idea of making 'The Grandmasters' started in 1996 when Wong Kar-wai was working on his film 'Happy Together' in Argentina. He was in a train station's magazine shop,There were a lot of magazines,but He noticed there were two covers,one is Chairman Mao,The other is Bruce Lee,Those Magazines are not sell to the students from history department,those are sell to teenagers,They're their heroes,idles.In western world ,Chairman Mao and Bruce Lee are the two most famous Chinese figure.He was very curious why Bruce Lee have so much influence in the western world even after he passed away so many years.The director himself is also a huge Bruce lee fan,,He was watching Bruce Lee's films to grow up,and He loved to watch Bruce lee's film,but he still shocked to found out Bruce Lee's huge influence in western world.
He really want to make a Martial art film about Bruce Lee at that time,Yet because the Bruce Lee story had already been told many times,so he put this idea aside,but he began to wondering about who's Bruce Lee's master, who is that person that educated Bruce Lee and turn him into a legendary.Later on,when Wong Kar wai went back to Hong Kong,He had a chance to saw a Wing Chun tutorial video made by Yip Man(Bruce Lee's Master) three days before He passed away,The most touchable part for the director is Yip Man paused for a while in the middle of making this video( when He was performing a Wooden Dummy form).Wong Kar wai wondering whether Yip Man just got tired and need to catch a breath or he was already too old to remember all those moves ?Yip Man paused only for a second and then he carried on.Wong Kar-wai didn't understand what's happened at that time,but later on He got to know in Martial Art world that's a say:"If you keep recalling,it (those moves) will eventually comes back;As long as you are breathing, you shouldn't give up."He finally understood Yip Man just want to pass along his martial art to the next generation.(Yip Man never make martial art videos in his life until three days before he pass away,that's even had a very interesting story about this: Bruce Lee once offer Yip Man a house to make a Wooden Dummy form video for him to brought it to US to practice,but Yip Man refused.In old times,even today traditional Chinese martial artists are extremely conservative about teaching martial art to others,They need to observing you for years,make sure you have high moral standard,then they start to teach you( advanced and brutal moves).
"Because Yip Man once educated someone like Bruce Lee,so he's a grandmaster.Because He's not only good at martial art himself,he can educated people even better than himself.A lot fo master teaching student,they only asked their students to copy them,Yip Man make a second move,after you learn everything from him,he will encourage you to explore and develop yourself,keep what's useful to you,get rid of those things useless to you,and go to study other martial arts,keep looking,keep reasearching and keep evolving."
--Duncan Leung(Yip Man's last Student)
