The Academy to Host Wong Kar Wai & Advance Screening of THE GRANDMASTER Tonight

The Academy's summer-long celebration of kung fu continues with a salute to writer-director Wong Kar Wai and an advance screening of his film "The Grandmaster," about the martial arts grand master who trained Bruce Lee tonight, July 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

Writer-director Matthew Weiner will host the evening, which features an onstage conversation with Wong. The Academy's current Grand Lobby exhibition "KICK ASS! Kung Fu Posters from the Stephen Chin Collection" will be open with extended viewing hours after the screening. Tickets for the event are sold out. A standby line will form on The Day of the event, and any available tickets will distributed shortly before the program.

Hong Kong-based filmmaker Wong Kar Wai is known for his unique sense of style and emotionally resonant work. The first Chinese director to win the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his 1997 film "Happy Together," Wong has been called a "poet of time" by Sight & Sound and "perhaps the most revered and singular of Hong Kong auteurs" by The New York Times.

His other films include "Chungking Express," "Fallen Angels," "In the Mood for Love," "2046" and his first English-language film, "My Blueberry Nights," which starred Norah Jones in her acting debut.

"The Grandmaster" tells the story of martial arts Grandmaster Ip Man (Tony Leung), who trained Bruce Lee. As he seeks to perfect his practice of the fighting style Wing Chun, Ip Man collides with another determined kung fu master, Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), during the Japanese invasion of China in 1936 and the tumultuous years that follow. The cast also includes Wang Qingxiang, Chang Chen, Xiao Shengyang and Song Hye Kyo, as well as hundreds of Asia's top martial artists.

The film has already been released in China and will hit U.S. theaters on August 23.

The Grand Lobby exhibition "Kick Ass! Kung Fu Posters from the Stephen Chin Collection" will be open for viewing after the screening.

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