Director: Xu Haofeng
Notable Cast: Liao Fan,
Song Jia, Song Yang, Jiang Wen-Li, Chin Shih-Chieh, Maidina, Huang Jue
Also known as: The
Master
Xu Haofeng is the next big name in Chinese cinema as an
artistic force to be reckoned with. In many ways, he already is as his most
recent film, The Final Master, is an award-winning
piece of cinema that is finally getting its US debut from our friends at Well
Go USA. Yet he’s proven throughout his three films as a director, The Sword Identity and Judge Archer prior to this one, that he
has an innate knack of being able to take classic Chinese cinematic traditions and
inject them with a modern artistic merit that brings them to a new level. The Final Master is Xu Haofeng’s finest
cinematic work to date. It’s not only a highly entertaining martial arts film
that utilizes many of the wuxia foundations as a base to build itself on, but
it’s a film that strikes out as remarkably diverse in its tone without ever
sacrificing the fluidity or depth of its narrative for the sake of making
something entertaining for the masses. It’s a film that rides the line between
the two worlds of cinema as art and entertainment while capitalizing on the successes
of both. The Final Master is a brilliant display of inventive navigation of the
genre and remains a film poignant and enjoyable in the best ways.