기억해야 할 것과 돌아보는 것에 대해 ― 영화 ＜일대종사＞에 관한 일 고찰

Abstract

This paper analyzed and considered The Grandmaster, a film produced by Wong Kar Wai, which deals with the biography of Yeop Moon. The Grandmaster is the first film that represents a historical figure who really existed, with the background of China, among Wong Kar Wai’s films. The Grandmaster describes Ye Wen and his achievement by using a technique entirely different from those of the existing ‘Ye Wen films’. It brought about change in the genre stereotype by excluding the mythicization and herozation of figures, which have been used by biography films and adding a story about Gung-I, a fictitious figure. In addition, although it apparently seems to be a martial art film, as do most of such films, it abandons the exhibition of duels among masters and brilliant martial arts techniques. Instead, The Grandmaster gives priority to the exploration of Ye Wen as a person and his time. It describes the process in which Ye Wen had struggled to transfer his own martial arts to the next generations, a longing for the moment in which Ye Wen and Gung-I are united through martial arts, and the Gung family which could not transfer its own martial arts to the next generations, but just vanished as Gung-I was confronted with historical limits. It is possible to easily infer the director’s thought the relationship between contemporary China and Hongkong, based on the aesthetics of the narrative constitution involved with figures and times in The Grandmaster. In addition, it may thus be possible to reflect on how to promote the co-existence of both contemporary China and Hongkong, through the journey of creation, which Wong Kar Wai has underwent to thoroughly arrange the biography of Ye Wen.