“The Final Master”

Not rated (1:49)

****

Opens today at Kahala 8 and Pearlridge West

Wing Chun knife fighting takes center stage in Xu Haofeng’s wall-to-wall martial arts action film “The Final Master,” but the deepest cuts come from the games of sexual politics and political intrigue in this unusual, compelling and even humorous thriller.

Take, for instance, the scene in which Wing Chun master Chen Shi (Liao Fan) and his wife, Zhao Guo Hui (Song Jia), sit on a bench and have a tender discussion about the state of their marriage — all while Chen calmly disposes of 20 challengers from a rival martial arts academy.

Set in the 1930s, “The Final Master” has more meat than the usual martial arts film, and perhaps that’s because Xu is not only a director, but also a screenwriter, novelist and martial arts expert. The film is based on Xu’s novella called “The Master.”

It can’t have hurt that Xu also was a scriptwriter for Wong Kar-wai in the 2013 film “The Grandmaster” — talk about learning from a master.

Chen’s plan in the “The Final Master” is to fulfill his master’s dying wish to establish a martial arts school in Tianjin, a port city in northeastern China. In the complicated world of honor among the martial arts community, which in Tianjin consists of 19 schools, Chen establishes himself as a power if he and his apprentice defeat eight of the schools.

By any means necessary, apparently. Hand-to-hand combat, fights with bamboos poles and lots of knife wielding are on display, — defeat is a kind of death itself for these guys — and some female fighters, too.

“The key to martial arts is not to duck,” Chen says at one point. “Because heads are heavier than hands; hands move faster.”

To paraphrase Shakespeare, heavy lies the head that wears a crown, because as Chen gets closer to his ultimate goal, he finds himself becoming a pawn in the Tianjin’s elite power game.

The fight climax and resolution cap off an exhilarating two hours of entertainment — and suggests a sequel to come. Hope there is one.