【电影简介】

民国年间师父陈识（廖凡饰）为完成“咏春北上，弘扬武学”的使命，来到天津。初来乍到的师父在一次因缘际会下，于一家西餐厅邂逅了师娘（宋佳饰）并一见钟情，后经人说亲二人喜结连理。为了在天津开武馆立足，师父陈识收当地青年耿良辰（宋洋饰）为徒，徒弟需按照江湖规矩代替师父踢馆，二人由此被卷入一场江湖巨变。最初二者各怀心事，却在经历了一番“生死劫难”后，生出难以割舍的情义。师父本以弘扬武学为终生寄托，徒弟只是他圆江 湖之梦所借助的手段，却在不经意间为其命运所牵系。徒弟飞扬勇决，放荡不羁，却总在重要关头坚守使命。他们既初心仍在，却也难负真情。

【音频文本】

2015 Chinese martial arts film "The Master" is the first big budget commercial film by writer and director Xu Haofeng, and also the first opportunity for the wider audience to have a taste of Xu's distinctive style.

Xu's very first feature film met with lukewarm reception from the market back in 2012, and for that reason his second one never received wide-scale publicity. Although his stories have been adapted by famous film director Wong Kar Wai in "The Grand Master", and by Chen Kaige in "Daoshi Xiaoshan" or "Monk Comes Down the Mountain," neither of those has quite captured the apparently bizarre yet intrinsically straightforward logic that motivates the characters in his story.

"The Master" will have a better chance of impressing the general public. Set in Tianjin in the Early 20th Century, the story follows a Guangdong master who seeks to expand the influence of his martial arts school in a heavily guarded territory. To achieve this, he can't just go ahead and challenge local schools, but instead has to spend three years training an apprentice to do the heavy-lifting. With the support of a local partner, his plan would have worked, if only they were the only players in the game. Most of Xu Haofeng's characters are obsessed with something. The Guangdong master starring Liao Fan (Black Coal, Thin Ice) is determined to propagate his school for the sake of his own late master. His disciple shows a strong attachment to his hometown Tianjin and is willing to die here instead of surviving elsewhere. The Tianjin local masters are keen on protecting their own territory and their rules. In a place where one's well-being hinges on the size of one's fists, everyone is after something, be it honor, fame, power or family.

But within this seemingly diverse and chaotic reality, everyone is surprisingly simple-minded. The characters' decisions and actions are as swift as their weapons are sharp, leaving no room for Shakespearean Hamlet's struggles. This simplicity of life philosophy is what distinguishes Xu Haofeng's masters from the commoners under our modern skins.

Unlike Chen Kaige who made a major misstep in casting, Xu Haofeng appears to have the best casting members at his disposal, bar a couple of insignificant roles of course. Having survived a two-month intensive training, actor Liao Fan is able to execute some efficient moves and complete stunning action scenes as per the director's requirement. The viperine demeanor in Jiang Wenli makes one shudder at the thought of even being her friend, much less her enemy. And actress Song Jia lends all her charm to make the unappealing destination of Tianjin all the more attractive. Thanks to the dedication of the actors and actresses, the quirky world of Xu Haofeng is now much easier to understand.

The realistic fighting style of an authentic Xu Haofeng film seems a far cry from that of a Jet Li film, where the kungfu masters pose, swing and make believe to entertain the camera. "The Master" is different because other than martial arts per se it speaks of the end of an old world and its orders, and it is the people and their strong beliefs in this historical context that impress the most intelligent and responsive audience members.

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