i must have seen a different film!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Poor writing, pretentious, lack of resolution. The only worthwhile scene from this film is the alley fight. Reviewers lauding t his film as some sort of modern martial arts rebirth are grasping at straws.

This is the FIRST Asian martial-arts themed movie I have ever rated this low...and I've seen a lot of bad martial-arts movies."The Final Master" tells a story, albeit poorly, about a Master Wing Chun martial artist who, in order to be able to open his own temple, must defeat eight other Masters. You would think that would be interesting and you would be woefully wrong.Everything in this movie is awful: the acting, the fight scenes, the choreography, the directing, and the stupid (and never-ending) dialogue. It moves at a snail's pace and, although not that long, seems to take an eternity to finish. The choreography for the fight scenes was atrocious. It looked staged, as no movements were fluid (let alone quick). Rated PG-13 for some skin and lots of bloodless violence.

I'd like to bring to your attention a movie that I have recently had the pleasure of seeing that I'm sure will excite any fan of the martial arts movie genre..The film is called " The Final Master" by writer/director Xu Haofeng, which I believe is a classic and transitive martial arts film that will,if built upon, move the martial arts genre to another level. For the martial arts fight fan the film is filled with inventive and skillfully conceived martial arts action sequences that will excite, surprise and amaze you and for the average moviegoer presents the martial arts film aesthetic within a captivating story with powerful dramatic conflict and fascinating characters.that offers a great time at the movies that anyone can relate to.Comparisons will be made to movies like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon , Hero and Ip Man but I believe it is superior to them all in the way it honors the martial arts movie genre while at the same time transcending it.Its foundation is a genre trope that fans know all too well. A martial arts master travels to a foreign city to make a name for himself and his style. While most martial films would stop at this point the writer/director Haofeng ventures much deeper to construct a multi layered tapestry of trust, loyalty, love, betrayal and personal struggle that vacillates between a delicate touch and a hammering iron fist. This range of conflict is what distinguishes it and gives this film its impact.What I enjoy most about this film is how the director does an excellent job of blending dramatic conflict and martial arts action.so that every fight in the film is essential in propelling the story forward and sets the stage for escalating dramatic conflict that makes the fighting pay off in emotionally powerful ways.. And this does not take away from the spectacular action is that is on display here as the fight choreographers did a tremendous job of juxtaposing spectacular and complicated fight sequences with a seemingly true to life realism that elevates it above most martial arts exploitation fare. This is less a martial arts movie per se and more of a dramatic story with some of the most powerfully executed realistic looking martial arts you have ever seen on film, its subtle power is truly breathtaking..Oh yes .. I forgot to mention that most of the fights are done in close quarter with razor sharp blades.Martial arts movies are oftentimes, and deservedly so, relegated to second class cinema, but with a compelling dramatic story and dynamic fight sequences blended together to form an organically entertaining cohesive whole, it is movies like " The Final Master" that will demonstrate why fans of the genre love these movies and why it is that films of this caliber that will keep the genre alive and growing for many years to come. The Final Master is a significant milestone in the evolution of martial arts cinema.

A screening of Haofeng Xu's latest martial art picture, his fourth feature and the fresh winner of BEST ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY in 2015 Golden Horse Awards, Haofeng, the co-screenwriter of Kar Wai Wong's THE GRANDMASTER (2013), has already manifested his unique philosophy and choreography of wushu since his shoestring budget second film THE SWORD IDENTITY (2011).Although the follow-up JUDGE ARCHER (2012) still hasn't secured a release date in mainland China, THE MASTER undoubtedly is Haofeng's most ambitious and mainstream work to date, with a more bankable cast, lead by Liao as the master Chen, a southern master of Wing Chun, arrives in Tianjin during the beginning of 20th century, trying to open his own Kung-fu school, but there are certain rules he must obey in the flourishing martial art world, he marries Zhao (Jia Song), a sultry waitress in a posh restaurant and recruits a protégé Gen (Yang Song), whom he personally trains to be his stepping stone to astonish the local schools, which is firstly governed by Master Zhen (Jin), whom Chen makes a pact with to attain his goal. But soon he is usurped by the widow Ms. Zhou (Jiang), who burns with ambition and colludes with the warlord Lin (Huang), a former pupil of Zhen, together they vainly attempt to militarise all the Kung-fu schools, whereas Gen and Chen become the last stumbling blocks in their way.What genuinely makes Haofeng's style so distinctive? Visually speaking, it is his idiosyncratic close-combat motion, the fast-moving and rapidly-editing techniques which transform combat skills from being aesthetically elegant (i.e. oriental gravity-defying jumping and flying) to something embedded with ritualistic devotion and awesome mastery, which is unsparingly efficient (sometimes even minimal) and deceivingly realistic, also, a glut of ancient Chinese weapons can maximally pique interest from viewers. On the other hand, thematically speaking, THE MASTER evokes the connotations of "anti-Kung-fu world", a rather bleak take on the conservative and fickle characteristics of these so-called martial artists, their mercenary pursuit trumps the noble idea of passing the knowledge on to their successors, Chen and Gen's master- and-apprentice relation is hinged solely on the former's personal interest, and the latter is a pawn whom he can desert without blinking his eyes, more complicated is his marriage with Zhao, and his rapport with Zhen, there is something pretty dark in Chen's motive to earn his name, yet the villainess Zhou can outsmart him in every step, for her self-seeking purpose though, only one misstep (one cannot overthrow all the formulae of a well-established genre), there is no one in her team can beat master Chen.As a Kung-fu film, THE MASTER has a surprisingly low body count (only 2 major characters die in the film), killing becomes inhuman and utterly unnecessary when paralysing your opponents is sufficient enough to soldier on relentlessly. With an unhurried open ending, the story is far from taking its curtain call while a subsequent cat-and-mouse game is shaping up, Haofeng shows his confidence of a sure-fire sequel in the future. The cast is a shade uneven while veteran players Liao, Jin and Jiang all shine with impressive presences. Still, sometimes the dialogues need a bit more fine-tuning to sound believable under certain contexts, however, one sure thing is that Haofeng Xu has stoutly emerged as one of the most aspiring director radiant with an auteurist flair presently, in the traditional Chinese Kung-fu territory, who is worthy of the admiration from a much larger scale of spectators!