the story begins with a spider-web.

there is a man, with weak smiles and expert painting hands. there is a doctor who only arrived in town last month and holds mysteries in his eyes. there is an agent who hides behind laundry-lines and mercilessly hunts for his prey. there is an old fort with ghosts lurking in the rafters. and there is a woman armed with nothing but determination and steel, running for her life.

the story will not end with defeat.

the army is marching across rivers and plains and rocks. they claim they stand for the laws of the land and they hide behind the rules so they can commit injustices. earthly matters of greed and power are…

Using what critical facilities I have when it comes to 1960s-70s Asian cinema (ie. fairly limited), what is striking to me in the work of King Hu is how pointedly different it is from an action choreographer like Lau Kar-Leung. Notably, Hu's action is at one more simple and more fantastic. The sequences here (which the first only happens after an hour of set up) are built on notably longer takes (meaning at least a 4-5 ASL during action), often shot from a distance, and most notably are built around pausing. The too oft-repeated "kung fu like ballet" doesn't seem as appropriate here - the action is built around one or two careful blows followed by long pauses where the…

Criterion Collection Spine #825
(Foreign language film)

(The Average Joe’s Movie Club Cast Episode 14)

A majestic slow burn of Chinese cinema, that packs a punch when it comes to its high flying martial arts action, sword duels, and eastern spirituality.

"I've been a student of military strategy since I was a child ... If they can be lured here ... I can find a way to crush them!

I was excited to check out Director King Hu's A Touch of Zen, after I had heard it was an inspiration for Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'. But before it gets to its excellent action set pieces, there was a whole lot story that was a little hard to follow,…

Matthew Ekstrom's #1 Film Selection for Edgar

Impossible to fight against its power... Impossible to be overwhelmed by its technical brilliance...

I cannot fight against it!

Screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival, and winning a Technical Grand Prize, King Hu's massively influential, multifaceted work of art Xia nü became the first Mandarin language film ever to win a major western film festival award.

Still, the size and scope of the film overshadow this fact, almost transforming it into a futile piece of trivia.

With a massive array of both philosophical and technical offerings, the massively underappreciated Taiwanese treasure has the most unusual capacity to transform itself into something else with each episodic advancement it makes through time:

1) It…

"Bravery without strategy achieves nothing" - Gu,

So... fucking... good.

In A Touch of Zen, a woman who is a fugitive hides in a small decrepit village in the Ming Province, where she eventually receives aid from a clumsy painter and other friends... epic fighting ensues. This movie is epic as fuck and I love that though not everyone will. A Touch of Zen is just over three hours long but it doesn't feel a minute over 2 hours and 50 minutes.... I wouldn't have it any other way. I am looking forward to more classics in the Wuxia sub-genre.

The production is astounding and I see why it was given the technical award at the Cannes Film Festival, along…

I spent well over a decade avoiding watching this because a) it only existed on low quality grey market DVDs b) its reputation and runtime were intimidating and c) I assumed it would be more of an arthouse vegetable than a populist wuxia. Finally saw it today theatrically on a restoration DCP, and I'm happy to report that I was (once again) very wrong. It's more Leone than Ozu (though, now that I think about it Leone meets Ozu might be an apt, if not too reductive, descriptor for director King Hu). The setup involving a local no-dad-having loser getting mixed up with some mysterious characters that forever change his destiny is pretty much catnip to me (see also Star…

I had a DVD copy of this and remember not finishing it because the transfer was so bad I couldn't see what was happening in the dark scenes. So now I got the Criterion blu ray copy and finally sat down to watch this. I can see why it's hailed as a masterpiece, it is a beautiful film and an achievement for sure, but I couldn't help but be disappointed in the story itself. It sets itself up to be this film about a guy who is an artist and you know he's about to get into some deep shit that is going to get him in trouble, but then in hour two he seems to become a background character,…

ughm i feel like im about to share a bad take

first how can you take anything serious thats made by people who eat dogs and kakalaka

another thing that i cant take seriously are the combat scenes. there is no weight, its all so flimsy and weak looking. its also beyond ridiculous. 2 people can just beat 50, people fire 5 arrows at the same time from a bow the guys jump around like idiots and a guy throws a sword at a wall then jumps on top of the sword and then over the wall. this just smashes with the otherwise very serious tone of the movie.

i found hardly anything in this movie entertaining. theres just not…

I can’t help but feel a little let down after seeing this. Its strength is that it shares the two things that make the best wuxia films so special: gorgeous cinematography and exciting martial arts scenes (although some of the fight scenes set at night were way too dark). 

But the film’s structure somewhat spoiled the experience for me. We spend an entire hour learning about young scholar Gu, only for him to serve no significant role for the rest of the film - his only character development is him realising he shouldn’t laugh at dead people. Maybe it’s for the best, as I liked Hsu Feng’s Yang a lot more (she was by far the best character). 

It’s not…