The Grandmaster

[Safran]

Thanks for attentively posting the link, Eri
Unfortunately I could not watch
Like Heike, I hope we´ll find a recorded version ....later.

[yitian]

Pics of Tony discussing The Grandmaster at University of Hong Kong

[yitian]

More pics at HKU

[yitian]

Tony met with audiences at a UA theater

[Frances Chan]

[Eri]

Now you can watch here


Event Details

Supported by the HKU Culture and Humanities Fund, a dialogue on the film
"The Grandmaster" ¡m¤@¥N©v®v¡n was held at HKU.

http://www.daao.hku.hk/thegrandmaster/webcast/

[Safran]

To Yitian:
Cordial thanks for the pack of good pics

To Frances:
Many thanks for sharing your first delighted TG-impressions
(I also can´t await to watch....haha) Wish you good luck for watching it on the big screen as soon as possible !

To Eri:
Thank you soooo much for posting the recorded dialoge with Tony on HKU ...soooo quick ! It works well !

[Eri]

In the video, HK Univ.'s special tartan was presented to Tony.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.404387156297495.92124.113263185409895&type=1

http://www.tartanregister.gov.uk/tartanDetails.aspx?ref=10713

[ham]

Thanks Yitian ,Eri

[ham]

[yitian]

Thanks Eri and ham
Eri's video is now on Youtube too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9vRKCiXxAv0

[yitian]

Tony promoting The Grandmaster in Paris

[Jamaica]

Hope we get to see the photo session shots! Tony is too cool!
_________________
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

[Jamaica]

http://m.zimbio.com/Kar-Wai+Wong/articles/rddBJL6QWsS/Tony+Leung+Chiu+Wai+gets+more+screen+time

Tony Leung Chiu Wai gets more screen time in The Grandmasters International Version
>>AsianArtists
By newswinoke - Feb-7-13 7:56am
From: blogasianartists.blogspot.com

TVB News World - Asian Entertainment News Daily

Tony Leung Chiu Wai gets more screen time in The Grandmasters International Version
Feb 7th 2013, 12:55


The 63rd Berlin Film Festival opens tonight, the Wong Kar Wai directed THE GRANDMASTERS (YUT DOI JUNG SI) will open the event. The film's leads Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Zhang Ziyi yesterday morning already flew from Paris for Berlin in preparation for the film festival opening.

The film's international version has 8 less minutes than the China and Hong Kong version of 130 minutes, but Wai Jai's role only increased. Two major scenes like Wai Jai's fight with Cung Le and Bruce Lee's childhood meeting with Ip Man would appear in the international version! Wai Jai said, "I never thought that my role was less in the Mainland version, so I don't feel anything too special about the added scenes. Instead I feel some adjustments to the story make it more intense!"

As for the fight scene wing Cung Le, Wai Jai remembered it like it was yesterday as he joked that he was already scared off before the shoot. "I already had pressure from working on a fight scene with him. Every time I saw him he would ask if I brought any protective gear, which added to my pressure. As the shoot went on, his martial arts truly were very high quality. He was able to control them at will. Our collaboration was very pleasant."

Because the international version was shorter, director Wong Kar Wai was in depth consideration finally removed some of Zhao Benshan's scenes. Because his role discussed kung fu with metaphors, foreigners might not understand. Thus he could only removed this part.
_________________
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

[Jamaica]

http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/news/berlin-2013-wong-kar-wai-418839

Berlin 2013: Wong Kar-wai on 'The Grandmaster,' Hong Kong Cinema and 'Passing the Torch' (Q&A)
1:35 PM PST 2/6/2013 by Clarence Tsui


"My cinema is something that belongs to the Chinese people as a whole, and it shouldn’t be limited to just a certain geographical territory in a certain historical era," said the the veteran auteur.

Seated in a hotel suite off Place Vendome in Paris, Wong Kar-wai is in fine spirits. You would never know he has just flown in overnight from Bangkok, where he was working around the clock to finish the international cut of his latest release, the martial arts epic The Grandmaster. The new version that opens the Berlinale is about 13 minutes shorter and also went through a small change in structure.

Grandmaster has already been released in China to positive reviews and generated nearly $45 million at the box office, giving Wong his first bona fide blockbuster. As the film makes its international premiere Thursday night at the Berlinale Palast, audiences will be treated to a mix of stunning action choreography (by Yuen Woo-ping) and Wong’s trademark melancholy. The film is an account of how legendary martial arts masters Ip Man (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), Gong Er (Zhang Ziyi), her father Gang Baotian (Wang Qingxiang), The Razor (Chang Chen) and Ma San (Zhang Jin) navigate their lives in politically unstable times in 20th-century China.

Wong, who also presides over the festival competition jury, talked with The Hollywood Reporter about the last-minute fine-tuning of a project he conceived nearly 17 years ago and what the film says about contemporary China.

The Hollywood Reporter: Why did you decide to make an international version of the film?

Wong Kar-wai: The version [released in Asia] has elements which Chinese audiences will be familiar with but which will not be that familiar to foreign audiences. There’s so much information that people could easily become confused. For example, during Ip Man’s opening voice-over about his own background, he talks about his family having a business on Bonham Strand West [a traditional hub of import-export trade in downtown Hong Kong]. Hong Kong audiences will know what that means, but to foreigners it doesn’t mean anything. So we just changed it to how he was running a family business which exports goods to Hong Kong. We made adjustments like this so that international audiences know what it is about.

THR: The film has gone through quite a long period of gestation and production. How different is the final product from the original idea?

Wong: I started out wanting simply to look at Ip Man the person. Later on, however, I discovered what I really wanted to examine is the whole martial arts landscape. I think the biggest question for me was, “What made Ip Man so remarkable?” Some would say it’s because he had a disciple called Bruce Lee, but that would be ignoring something that is crucial: the circumstances which shaped Ip Man’s life. His life is a microcosm of contemporary Chinese history. He lived through the Qing dynasty, the early republican years, the northern conquest [by the government against warlords], the fight against the Japanese [during WWII] and finally the exodus to Hong Kong [during and after the Chinese civil war between 1945 and 1949]. If you don’t give a proper account of this background, you won’t be able to understand the difficulties he goes through. Among the Chinese, and especially among martial arts practitioners or artists, there is this very important notion of passing the torch. It’s about realizing how one doesn’t own what one’s learned. Receiving inherited wisdom from the generation of forefathers means there’s also a responsibility to pass it on. This is the burden a grandmaster has to bear.

THR: Is this something you can identify with as a veteran in your field?

Wong: I wouldn’t really say I’m a grandmaster, so there’s nothing autobiographical about the film. But I think just like what Ip Man did for martial arts, Hong Kong cinema needs a new way of thinking. The other day, while working in Bangkok, a friend gave me this 1990s book about Hong Kong films. The author was saying then how we’ve been making too many films for international markets and we were losing our own unique qualities. But we have to understand that Hong Kong films have been dependent on overseas markets from the very beginning; we’ve never been dependent on our own domestic market. And now you have all this talk about “going north” to tap the mainland Chinese market. But if Hong Kong films are really good, the sky’s the limit. You don’t have to rely merely on the mainland Chinese market. You shouldn’t really constrain yourself.

THR: So how does it feel now to be a Hong Kong filmmaker working on the mainland?

Wong: My cinema is something that belongs to the Chinese people as a whole, and it shouldn’t be limited to just a certain geographical territory in a certain historical era. It’s not like I have to make a film with mainland audiences in mind when we have mainland money in it — and in fact, there’s quite a bit of money from elsewhere as well.

THR: Can The Grandmaster also be seen as a chronicle of how Hong Kong became what it is, given that it ends with all the martial arts experts settling in the city and becoming part of its urban fabric?
Wong: That’s right. This is what I hope the film could be interpreted as. I’m happy now because I never expected the film could whip up so much debate and discussion about the city and what the martial arts masters’ roles were in its history. A lot of people were looking up information about the things we mentioned in the film, whether it’s the martial arts schools, which were set up there after the war, or other things we touched on in the story. This allows [Hong Kong] audiences to acknowledge, yet again, that we came from this very special place, and where the city’s vibrancy and core spirit stem from — that it’s a place that we should be really proud of.
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"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx