"14 Blades" boasts an awesome Donnie Yen, a lively visual style and entertaining action sequences, but it's really awkwardly paced thanks to the bloated narrative. Too much wasted screen-time is dedicated to stuff that doesn't really matter.
"The Grandmaster" contains enough brilliance to be worth watching, but It's not brilliant itself. Kar Wai Wong delivered more than enough when it came to creative visual ideas, which were magnificently realized by Philippe Le Sourd (the cinematographer) and those who were in charge of costuming, sets, music composition, etc. The problem is that the sloppy narrative cannot sustain Kar Wai Wong's ambitions.
MartialHorror reveals the "Top 10 Most Read Reviews (2014)" from his website, which does not contain any actual bitfisting...but it does contain penetration via chop sticks.
Unfortunately, while "Ip Man: The Final Fight" does give us a more human incarnation of the titular character, he's lost underneath a sea of supporting characters and subplots. The movie does boast some of the coolest production values and fight scenes that the trend has ever delivered, but its scatterbrained narrative is so frustrating!
I suppose that instead of criticizing “Kill Zone” for failing to reach its full potential, I should instead focus on how it somehow kept me invested despite sacrificing character development for kung fu, while not having enough kung fu. So I’m going to say that “Kill Zone” is a good movie because of its successes, while its failures keep it from being great.
At what point does a rip-off actually start to become a canonical entry within a franchise? "The Legend is Born- Ip Man" sort of answers that question.