Summit Cinema Film Festival Finale! Grandmaster splinters the competition!

Dear Ladies and Gentleman, representatives from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, Moscow, London, Mumbai,  Sydney, Vienna, Paris, Charleston, Los Angeles, and New York.  Thank you all for attending the Summit Film Festival this summer!  As the Festival comes to a close I wanted to thank all of you personally for not giving up on the art of film.

The final entry for the summer of 2013 competition is the done by none other than the jazz auteur himself.  A man whom pays attention to every cinematic detail the way a conductor guides a symphony.  The one the only MR. WONG KAR WAI.  In watching the opening of his latest feature "The Grandmaster" from the classical music and the swirl of colors of a painters palette a viewer gets transported to a cinematic Milky Way galaxy instantly.  The visuals by Wong are the best of any living director.  The initial rain sequence in which Tony Leung in his Panama hat and black Kung Fu outfit takes on a group of many is amazing.  Rickshaws are splintered and rain hits the actors like carpet bombs.  He is the Ip man and the last man standing.  His silhouette outlined like Indiana Jones as the fighters all reel in pain on the ground is stoic.

In looking at the sets for the film they were astounding.  Cheers to Martin Scorsese, Samuel Jackson, and the French for financing this movie.  Without their help I am sure the decadent Golden Pavilion that looks fashioned after the Forbidden City couldn't be created.  The train depot and snow house locations were magnificent.  The snow at the house Ziyi Zhang has never been executed in exactly the same way as how Wong utilized it for Zhang's childhood training.  There are parallels to this and Wong's other Kung Fu movie "Ashes of Time" although much of that takes place in the desert.  The way the natural environments and elements  add another dimensions to Kung Fu in general is enjoyable, but in Wong Kar Wai's hands it is taken to another level.

Favorite scenes from the film are watching Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang fight in a romantic dance sequence.  In some ways the Kung Fu in this film feels like a dance like West Side Story or Michael Jackson's "Bad".  Another scene is the Ziyi Zhang's fight sequence at the train depot.  In  this scene bricks are surreally  moved and bars are unhinged in slow motion.  Tony Leung practicing on the wooden block in stutter step slow motion looks amazing.

In terms of story and dialogue the romance between Leung and Zhang is mysterious and noir.  A button becomes a romantic symbol of everything.  As in most Wong Kar Wai film it's the mystery of love and desire that are most intriguing and not the actual dialogue.  In "In the Mood for Love" "2046" "Chungking Express" and "My Blueberry Nights" this is true.  The actors and actresses read the majority of the range of their emotions on their faces.  A reoccurring theme is the one that got away.

Thanks to those that support the Grandmaster especially the Weinstein Company.  Thanks for attending the Summit Cinema film festival this summer!  We appreciate the hits from Latvia, Russia, France, and India or wherever you may be.  Jump in the ocean one time before the summer's over.  Keep on grooving cinephiles and stay tuned!