The Final Master

This action-packed and captivating film tells the story of ‘Wing Chun’ Grandmaster Chen, the last surviving practitioner of this particular martial arts discipline. His ambition is to open a special Martial Arts School in Tianjin but he faces his greatest obstacle in the ruthless and fearless Madame Zou who has her designs for taking control of the Martial Arts community in Tianjin…
The story is then told in flashback and we see Chen (Liao Fan) arriving in Tianjin where shortly after, he defeats all of Grandmaster Zheng’s (Chin Shi-Chieh) disciples. At this point it is Zheng who is the Grandmaster of the Tianjin Martial Art community. Impressed by Chen’s skills and the fact that he practices a little known style called ‘Wing Chun’, Zheng proposes that with his help Chen can open up a school in Tianjin for teaching his secrets in exchange. This, however, Chen politely declines but secretly plans to open a school in any case to further his reputation. In order to do so, he draws up a rule that allows him to open a school if he defeats eight of the local Tianjin schools. Grandmaster Zheng is concerned about Chen’s plan which could result in him being expelled from the city but Chen is not easily intimidated. Nonetheless Zheng insists that someone else carry out the defeat of the schools.

Meanwhile Chen decides he needs to marry a local woman in order to stay on and the chose one is the beautiful waitress Zhao (Song Jia) , a troubled soul who had a child with a foreigner when she was young and who gave her baby away – something that comes back to haunt her now. Chen and Zhao's arrangement is a sham marriage (although the marriage is consumed) and to the outside world they are nothing more than a poor couple living in a hut at the periphery of the city. During an outing into town, Chen and Zhao are attacked by thugs who don’t stand a chance with Chen around. Geng (Song Yang), a local rickshaw coolie, is attracted by what he sees and soon after he ays a visit to Chen’s residence(if only to try it on with Zhao) before he reminds himself of the actual reason for his visit: to challenge Chen to a duel! Needless to say that Chen defeats Geng but decides to accept him as a disciple and breaks the news to Grandmaster Zheng.

Nothing seems to stand in the way of Chen’s apparent rise to fame, victory and opening his own school except the anger of cross-dressing Madame Zou (Jiang Wenli) and her thugs who leave no blade unturned to stop him in his tracks. But Chen won’t have any of Madame Zou’s cunning attempts to rain on his parade, and if it means to betray Geng and infuriating his wife Zhao then so be it! What ensues is not just an orgy of jaw-dropping martial arts fights carried out at breakneck speed but a complex and constant shift and loyalties and betrayals… ultimately costing the stubborn and proud Geng his life and causing Zhao to leave Chen. The film ends with Chen alone on a train leaving Tianjin and looking into a blood-stained book which used to belong to the assassinated Geng.

The cinematography by Wang Tianlin is breathtaking and adds to the overall exotic flair of 1930’s China. As ever with this genre, the fight scenes and the spectacular choreography won a price at the prestigious Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan. THE FINAL MASTER is a worthy addition to the ever popular Martial Arts genre.