The Final Master - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Final Master

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
When people think of the martial art Wing Chun, most people automatically go to Bruce Lee’s famous sensei, IP Man. A plethora of fictionalized films have been made about the legendary martial arts master, from The Grandmaster to all of the Ip Man films starring Donnie Yen (and a few sequels that didn’t). However, Haofeng Xu, the writer of The Grandmaster has taken on writing, directing, producing and choreographing a new film about the infamous martial arts style, but with a new hero at the helm. Definitely more fictionalized than even the Ip Man, The Final Master creates a distinctly different martial arts epic than we are used to. There is a slightly playful mood to the action extravaganza, but also a dark seriousness that is very much different than your standard “earnest hero wins against all odds” methodology that is indicative of most kung fu flicks.

There is some confusion with The Final Master as Haofeng Xu plays the editing and plot details a bit fast and loose. The film opens up with the movie’s hero, Chen Shi (Fan Liao) involved in some sort of martial arts demonstration on a train. A sequence that seems to have little bearing or focus on the actual film, only to have him take on a group of armored opponents in a great hall. One which actually is in front of an audience. It seems that Chen is one of the few practitioners of Wing Chun in the 1930s, and he is realizing that he is one of the few people left who knows the secrets of the martial art. His friend Zheng (Shih-Chieh King) wants to change the makeup of the Chinese studios by allowing anyone and everyone access to the martial arts world, but is denied by the rules of the order. However, Chen is his way in as Chen wants to start a school in the northern city of Tianjian where he lives and if Chen can open their eyes, maybe there is hope for him as well.

The thing is, the town of Tianjian has all of these archaic rules and honorific statutes in place that make opening a school a nightmare. Chen can’t fight the other grand masters or be expelled, but if he can raise an apprentice to be able to defeat at least 8 of the 18 masters in town, he will be allowed to open his school. The only thing is, the rules state that the apprentice must fight another opponent and be banished for the humility of defeating all of them, which means that the apprentice will be someone who has to knowingly fight with the knowledge that he will be banished soon after. Sneaking in under pretense of poverty and anonymity, Chen creates a marriage of convenience with him and a disgraced working girl named Zhao (Jia Song) and trains a coolie worker named Geng Liangchen (Yang Song). An apprentice that soon turns out to be a prodigy like no other.

With Chen secretly training Geng Liangchen into a virtuoso, there is also the knowledge that he is going to betray his apprentice to Zhen once the appropriate 8 schools have been defeated, and the marriage of convenience between himself and Zhao soon turns into something more. The fights are all played off as serious, but there is a lot of deadpan humor interjected into the dialog heavy scenes. The lilting stringed music belies this fact as well as a wink and a nod at the camera in more than one shot. There’s a whole scene where Chen gets stabbed in the shoulder during a fight and then calmly announces to his apprentice that he cut himself shaving in complete deadpan nature. The witty dialog between Chen and Zhao make for some darkly hilarious encounters, but Haofeng Xu does struggle with fitting all of the puzzle pieces together. His editing can be harsh at times, and scenes seem a little bit jerky in terms of fitting together.

However, this is more than made up for in terms of hand to hand combat. Instead of focusing on wire work and typical Wing Chun fisticuffs, Chen and his opponents tend to use bladed weapons (Chen’s favorites are thick bladed knives), and this makes for some incredibly brutal fight scenes. Both Chen and Geng engage in a few awesome fights that really keep the action high, and the end sequence alleyway battle between Chen and the remaining grand masters is pure epic. Without the use of high flying wire work and regular hand/feet combat, the bladed attacks have a visceral and very intense feel to them. A boon that helps make up for the slightly confusing plot lines that intertwine politics, betrayal, humor and sheer insanity all at once.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Well Go USA has given us a simply fantastic looking 1080p encode for The Final Master. IMDB lists the film as being a digital shoot, and it has that shiny, glossy look of your typical digitally shot movie. Colors are a bit grey and earthy, but there are some really sharp primary colors, like the jade color of Zhao’s dress, or the blood red of…well… blood. Fine detail is excellent throughout the film, and the overall clarity of the image is quite pleasing. I noticed a short bout of banding at the beginning of the opening of the film, but that faded quickly, leaving behind a very crisp and clean looking image. Blacks are solidly deep and inky, and I detected no signs of any major artifacting.








Audio:

Usually I’m not too picky about Atmos tracks and the like, but I really feel that The Final Master could have used an upgraded audio track. The film is heavily reliant on some really cool and inventive audio cues and sound effects. Sound effects that really could have taken advantage of the next gen audio capabilities. However, the 5.1 mix is still a stunning track. Dialog is crisp and clear, while the unique sounds blades slicing, and impacts hitting all over the soundstage takes full advantage of the surround systems. The LFE is impactful and powerful, adding weight and authority to all of the battles and makes for an incredibly visceral audio experience. A well done track on just about every level.






Extras:

• "The Weapons" Featurette
• Director Featurette
• Trailers

Final Score: ​

The Final Master is a VERY different martial arts film than I was expecting, and the change in mood and pace makes it extremely inviting. The confusing editing and plot direction could use some work, but the choreography is top notch, and the use of bladed weapons as the mainstay of the film’s action makes for some really entertaining fight scenes. Some elements of the movie had me scratching my head, but the battles and sheer lunacy of the movie had me grinning from ear to ear by the time I was done. Well Go USA’s Blu-ray encode is excellent, giving us hard hitting audio and a great video encode, although the extras are a tad on the weak side for my tastes. Definitely worth checking out if you’re into martial arts epics.
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Technical Specifications:

Starring: Fan Liao, Jia Song, Wenli Jiang
Directed by: Haofeng Xu
Written by: Haofeng Xu
Aspect Ratio: 2.39.1 AVC
Audio: Mandarin: DTS-HD MA 5.1, Mandarin DD 2.0
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 109 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 25th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Worth Checking Out

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I love to watch some martial arts movies.. I like the trailer so will check it out.