The Fate of Lee Khan "迎春閣之風波" (1973) directed by King Hu

 After A Touch of Zen (1971), King Hu did a slight, but important change-up. Ying-Chieh Han, who had been the action director on King Hu's films since Come Drink with Me (1966) was replaced in the role by the prodigy and contemporary of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung. Hung had played roles as an elite mook in various other King Hu films (most noticeably in A Touch of Zen where he is one of the personal bodyguards too the final boss). While Han's fighting-style for cinema, rooted firmly in Beijing Opera, Hung (who grew-up in a Beijing Opera school with Jackie Chan) was part of the generation that was directly influence by of the generations that was directly influenced by Bruce Lee. Because of this, while Hung's action directing and choreography is greatly in Beijing Opera the quick movements and minimalist techniques of Bruce Lee is very apparent in this film compared King Hu's previous ones. Even Ying-Chieh Han's fighting is accelerated more than in the films where he was action director. I'll talk more about Han later. 

This movie, like Dragon Inn (1967), takes place mostly in an inn. Like Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, the movie is named after the antagonist. What sets this movie apart (also like 'Sansho') is that it is set in the Yuan/Mongolian era of Chinese imperial history—an era that is not usually filmed. Most historical Chinese films take place during the Ming or Qing dynasties (the Ming Dynasty is King Hu's preferred setting). This means that the costumes are very different from what we are used to seeing—especially with the antagonists.

This story is another King Hu espionage caper—but this time he is not putting his protagonists against the secret police, but the regular government. The protagonists are at a place called the Spring Inn to thwart the plans of the brutal regional Lord Lee Khan. The problem is that both Lee Khan and the Han rebels have spies everywhere.

Another interesting thing about this movie is the playing-against-type going on in this film. Ying-Chieh Han had always played antagonists in King Hu films (most notably the final boss in A Touch of Zen), but this time he is on the side of the protagonists. Meanwhile Hsu Feng–who was the main female protagonist in A Touch of Zen–is The Dragon in this film (Lee Khan's fateful daughter). It is amazing to see these two in the role-reversal and it reminds me of Feng's role in Raining in the Mountain (1979).

At two hours, this is one of the shorter King Hu films and possibly the most normal one to get into of his. I also like that, while it is a "Han vs..." film it does not engage in the same crude xenophobic-stereotyping of the antagonists as so many Shaw Brothers films do. And it is a Golden Harvest co-production to-boot (home studio of Bruce Lee). I am happy to watch another King Hu film, and happy to recommend it to you. Happy New Year!

My Review of A Touch of Zen (1971) directed by King Hu

I can't say I know how or why one reads or watches something and knows it's special. It just leaves you in an ethereal space feeling elevated. That was my feeling when I first watched A Touch of Zen (1971). I had watched so many martial arts movies: the films of Kurosawa, the Zatoichi films, Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, etc. But when I watched this movie about the decade ago, I knew I had seen something special, something on a higher level. This film did what only the films of Kurosawa--specifically Seven Samurai(1954)--had done. It had took the Chinese martial arts film to the level of high-art.

This movie, like Dragon Inn (1967), uses the era of Ming China and the abuses of the East Chamber (aka Eastern Depot) Group to commentate against The Bond films and on the civil power (wén 文) and the military/marital power (wǔ 武).

Dong Chang (the Eastern Depot) was a special service organization during the Ming dynasty, one of the most powerful and vicious secret police forces in all of the history of China. Answering directly to the emperor, the Eastern Depot was controlled and directed by the eunuchs of the court. It had license to arrest and execute any member of the populace, up to and including highly placed ministers of the court, without having to clear it through any administrative or judicial departments of the government. It is not too much to say that the power of the Eastern Depot exceeded that of the modern Gestapo, and the very mention of its name was enough to cause innocent people to shake in their boots.

My films A Touch of Zen and the earlier Dragon Inn both have to do with the nefarious ways of the Eastern Depot. The James Bond films were all the rage at the time, a trend of which I did not quite approve. To my mind, whatever the purpose of a secret service organization, when it becomes too powerful, it is bound to be harmful to the people. Of course, much of the action in the James Bond stories was sheer fantasy, but they were nevertheless extremely popular and could not but exert an unsanitary influence. For this reason, in A Touch of Zen I sought to expose some of the evil deeds of an organization such as the Eastern Depot. - from King Hu's press release at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival

Dragon Inn and A Touch of Zen  both serve to illustrate what happens when the balance of there two is not balanced. This film  also uses Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism in a way that I have seen no other Chinese martial arts movie ever do (not even The 36th Chamber of Shaolin). The religious and spiritual aspects of this film are especially remarkable for how they are balanced out by the secular and, of course, fighting (the most famous and influential fight scenes in all of wuxia film history) sequences. The longest of the films in this King Hu "trilogy (if you include his two previous films), it is basically 3 movies in one that moves from ghost story to political intrigue/thriller to religious symbolism all while being a wuxia film throughout.

The opening of this film is remarkable because it is in a action film where no one speaks for the first 8 minutes. This is a marital arts film where the first punch is thrown for about 56 minutes. The music score is inverted from where we started with Come Drink with Me (1966) in that it leans more to Western-style orchestrations, but still uses Chinese classical music and Opera tropes as leitmotifs. The pace of the movie is much more laid-back than with Dragon Inn or any other Chinese martial arts film I have ever seen. Despite the pacing, it keeps you involved throughout the story.

We find a single Confucian scholar that lives in an abandoned military fort with his mother who wants him to take the civil service exam and marry; he also works in town as an artists. Our scholar sees things like the Ming civil service as a waste of time as he is under the influence of Confusions and Legalist philosopher Zhuge Liang. A mysterious man comes to town asks the scholar-artist for a portrait, but becomes very obsessed with the relatively new doctor in town. The scholar then finds an equally mysterious woman who has moved in next door to him in the abandoned fort.

We see Shih Chun in his second King Hu film--not as a badass fighters, but as a naive scholar who has to learn what his place in the world and life itself is truly about. Of course the stand-out acting is by Hsu Feng with the coldest, piercing stare this side of Ice Cube. Feng's presence as the cool and mysterious xianü (female fighter) here is incredible and she stamps her place as one of the greatest actresses in the history of action films. The Eastern Depot returns as the evil antagonists  and their commander is played by Han Ying-xie who is the fight choreographer/action director for this film and the big bad of this movie (the scariest of King Hu's villains). While the eunuch from Dragon Inn was stronger, Commander Xu Xian-chun in A Touch of Zen smarter and intimidating on another level. One of his personal attendants is played by Sammo Hung who would be Han Ying-xie's successor as fight choreographer on King Hu's films. The leader of the Buddhist monks is played by Roy Chiao (who ironically was a Christian in real-life).

The exact date of the film's action is uncertain, but based on the historical record this takes place after the events of Dragon Inn. The context and background of this film is the Donglin Reform Movement that saw attempts by Confucian scholars and bureaucrats to embark on anti-corruption campaigns in the Chinese imperial civil bureaucracy. In particular, this movie takes place during the reign of the Tianqi Emperor when the eunuch  Wei Zhongxian attempts to suppress the Donglin Movement by purging several of its leaders including Yang Lian, whose assassination/execution kicks-off the events of this this film. This is used as a subtle way to critique the imbalance of wu over wen, the political oppression going on in the Chinese-speaking world at the time, and to critique the James Bond films. Of course, the character of Gù Shěng-zhāi is a critique of the arrogance and hypocrisies of the intelligentsia during this the late 60s-early 70s.

A Touch of Zen is an interesting look at trying to understand the balances of civil and military authority; the balance of tradition and innovation/progress; how relentless people's greed is, and suggesting that there may be a way out of this vicious cycle with a touch of...well you get it. This is one of those films that, despite its length, I could watch on repeat  forever. For all the films I have seen with Shaolin monks and Buddhism, none have used spirituality as seriously as this film. All of the questions of conflict, suffering, and evil give way to a moment of transcendence that few films in this genre have ever been confident enough to do.

My Review of Dragon Inn '龍門客棧' (1967) directed by King Hu

A year has passed since the release of King Hu's blockbuster success at Shaw Brothers and two years since he had left Shaw Brothers Studio and went to Taiwan and co-founded  his own studio to produce his next two films in Taiwan. This was the Taiwan still under the autocratic rule of the KMT, so it was surprising that his next two films focuses specifically on the cruelty of unchecked state-power.

In the run-up to the making of this film, Hong Kong and much of the world was caught-up in the exploits of a British spy called James Bond. Hu went to the movies and watched these films and was disturbed by what he saw and by what these movies implied in glorifying secret security organizations. As someone who had know life with both the KMT dictatorship and the colonial British authorities (including MI5) in Hong Kong, he saw no reason to praise them. Hu decides to make this film and A Touch of Zen (1971), in-part, as a criticism of the racist copaganda of the Bond franchise--using the Ming China secret police organization called the East Chamber (or Eastern Depot) Group (Dōng Chǎng in pinyin). This organization was suppose to be loyal only to the emperor, but was in-practice ran by eunuchs and corrupt officials in the Ming Court (according to this movie's own dating, the events here take place in 1457 in the last year of the reign of the Jingtai Emperor).

The opening of this film sees a family of a wrongly-purged Ming official being banished to the frontier of the country in exile. They are all attacked by agents of the East Chamber Group who have decided that they are too much of a liability to be left alive. The kids and guards are saved at the last moment by our first protagonists: two mysterious siblings who repel the assassins. Meanwhile, the other members of the East Chamber Group brutally commandeer the titular Dragon Inn and go out looking for the kids. Just after that  we met another protagonist: a mysterious man in all white.

This second of the King Hu "trilogy" (along with Come Drink With Me (1966) & A Touch of Zen (1971)) carries over the Chinese Opera and Japanese martial arts cinema influence, but the music score is now incorporating Western music along with the Chinese Opera (specifically Beijing Opera) motifs and incidental music. The cinematography and the fight choreography has taken a big step up from where it was in Come Drink With Me (1966) The use of Taiwan's landscape and the costume design (which King Hu personally assisted with) are taken full advantage of. Hu wanted his first movie post-SB to count (and it would)!

This film took the Wuxia genre to another level (and it would have it's climax in Hu's next film). The fight choreography of Han Ying-jie is amazing and the fact that all of the protagonists are of near-equal strength to each other as fighters gives the action a special touch. Of course with hero protagonists this good, the villain antagonists have to bring it--and they do. The East Chamber Group are no slouches; unlike other martial arts and action films in-general, King Hu films do not like red shirts. The rank-and-file henchman are strong and if they have speaking roles they are really strong. The second and third in command are very formidable, but the big bad is possibly the strongest villain of any King Hu film. He is nigh-invincible and the heroes have to throw everything they have at him.

Another theme that comes into the movie after the halfway-point is racism. The Ming Dynasty saw China renew its territorial expansion into the Muslim Turkic frontier while fighting-off the former Mongol Yuans. All of this is playing in the background of the events of this movie. Two Turkic soldiers who were castrated (standard practice of the Ming) and forcibly-conscripted into the East Chamber Group defect to the heroes-side at the first opportunity and become crucial in the final fight of the film.

In the end, this film had a massive impact on the future of wuxia films and Chinese martial arts cinema as a whole. Shaw Bros came out with The One-Armed Swordsman the same year and King Hu immediately began work on his masterpiece. Dragon Inn (1967) became a massive hit with Asian audiences across the world. It broke box-office records in Taiwan and South Korea, and was the second-highest selling film in Hong Kong after...a James Bond movie. The combination of Japanese sword-play, Beijing Opera, and naturalism set in the Ming Dynasty made this hugely resonate movie for a generation of increasingly pissed-off Chinese cinema-goers enduring smug colonial and authoritarian rule in Hong Kong and Taiwan, respectively.

My Review of Come Drink With Me 大醉俠 (1966) directed by King Hu

I'm not as comfortable or confident at reviewing and analyzing movies as I am with books, but hopefully I can get better by trial and error. That being said, consider this more of an impression rather than a tradition review--what folks would call "thoughts."

The first of what I consider King Hu's trilogy (along with Dragon Inn (1967) and A Touch of Zen (1971)); this was the last feature film he made for the Shaw Brothers Studio production company and one of their greatest films. It is very different from the formula that would be put in place by Lau Kar-leung in subsequent years. Hu had been an actor and assistant director at Shaw Bros during their early years making mostly musicals, adaptations of Chinese Opera, historical pieces, romances, and adaptations of classic Chinese literature and comedic-musicals. With the growing popularity of Japanese martial arts movies and the growing popularity of adopting the Wǔxiá genre (originally fantasy literature) for movies saw the demand for martial arts films in the Sino-cinema world go up--and this film was one of the first to meet that demand.

The contrasting influences of things like the

One thing that distinguishes this film from other Shaw Brothers movies is the narrative-driven plot and style of King Hu. Shaw Brothers would become known internationally for the by-the-numbers, Han nationalist, pure action style of Lau Kar-leung & others, but their start in martial arts movies can be traced back to this movie and Hu's more art house sensibility which was going against the new style that Shaw Brothers (and Run Run Shaw in-particular) were shaping. Hu's films had a more spiritual aspect to them and saw the Han Chinese more conflicted with themselves than any outside invader.

The film introduces us to the first of King Hu's (and one of the first of Run Run Shaw's) badass female fighters. What would distinguish Hu and the Shaws throughout their careers was their embrace of women as capable fighters in action movies in their own right. This film introduces us to Golden Swallow who would get a sequel after the success of this film. We meet her in what would be a trademark of King Hu: a fight in close-quarters, usually an inn, temple, or forested area. Golden Swallow is in disguise (another King Hu trait) and she is one of two main protagonist fighters in this film. We also see the introduction of another mysterious, noble fighter who is a sort-of trickster character, but is crucial to plot.

What I like about villains in Chinese martial arts movies is that they are usually as strong as their rank in their organization. The number two really is the second-strongest person the bad guys have. The big bad is a lot of times the strongest person in the movie and it takes as many of the heroes as possible to bring them down. In King Hu's "trilogy", his fight choreographer Han Ying-jie plays one of the lieutenants in this film and Dragon Inn (in A Touch of Zen he is the big bad). The big bad in this film is an evil Buddhist priest who betrayed his master and is after one of his master's relics, while also holding the governor's son hostage.

This movie is the pinnacle of 1960s Shaw Bros martial arts cinema and the beginning of King Hu's long career as one of the most unique Chinese martial arts film-makers of all time. He would leave Shaw Brothers after making this film and head for Taiwan (taking a lot of the actors and crew of this film with him), where he would make his two greatest films Dragon Inn and his masterpiece A Touch of Zen (one of my all time favorite films). Much of the early tropes of the Shaw Brothers that we see in this film would be gone in Dragon Inn, as well as in the more realist-based Kung Fu films that SB would make following this movie.