HK director, Taiwanese writer talks about "masters"

Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai and Taiwanese writer Zhang Dachun expressed their views over their respective "grandmasters"- martial artist Yip Man and ancient Chinese poet Li Bai on Wednesday.

Wong's action movie "The Grandmaster", about the dramatic life of Chinese martial artist Ip Man, went on show earlier this year. From brainstorming, production to completion, Wong took more than a decade to bring the film on screen.

In fact, Wong is famous for his habit to spend a plenty of time on moviemaking. His previous works "2046" took approximately the same time to get it done and dusted.

Talking about the long overdue "The Grandmaster" in the annual Hong Kong Book Fair, Wong said it was far more than a Kung Fu movie.

"It depicts the story of the Kung Fu master Ip man from late Qing dynasty, republican era to the 1960's. It is not just about how cool his stances are, but also a reflection of the history in those years, such as battles against Japanese invasion, Chinese internal wars, and Hong Kong's outlook in last century." said Wong.

He said the popularity of Kung Fu are the least obvious under peaceful times like nowadays; nor will the parents allow their children to become professional fighters as Ip did, but the spirits of Kung Fu still exist in different veins.

"Kung Fu is actually the time and efforts that one spends on doing something. Whatever you do, it takes efforts," said Wong.

While jeering Wong for "make us being used to wait", Zhang also introduced his "grandmaster", literature guru Li Bai back in Tang dynasty, who will be the main character of his upcoming new book.

Zhang said although there had been millions of articles about the legendary poet, much information are in fact erred.

"People keep saying that he's from Tajikistan, but according to historical information, he's from Sichuan province," Zhang said.

He said Tang dynasty was a prosperous one, but people back in that time cared much about the family ties that they were born with. Therefore, Li Bai had to do everything he could to resemble the "blue blood", i.e the Li family in Han dynasty.

In other words, whether his surname was really Li, left us a question mark.

Asked whether it would be possible to make a sequential of "The Grandmaster" about the poet, Wong said, "It would be better to make one about Zhang himself," cracking the crowd up.