casts nature as mysterious, tangled but carefully deliberate, and casts reformers combating totalitarianism as potential ghosts, the past returning to claim its place, the dead returning to vanquish their living betrayers. Hu famously continues to restore to film from Chinese literature the female knight, another piece of the past that now points forward. and the male hero finds his strength only after he sleeps with her and meets the Abbot; the power here is sexual, literally balls to bones, naturally emanating from within. the villain, corrupt and unseen, is a eunuch; his power is baseless, empty, founded on lies. sex vs death. the film folds themes in so gradually that you truly float down the river without ever seeming to get wet.

Someday, some enterprising company is going to restore and rerelease these King Hu movies and then they're going to get a whole lot of my money.

100

As dreamy as the rivers in which we seek nourishment and as haunting as the figures which impede the voids which we yearn to observe in the darkness. One of those movies that check every box on the list and even invent a few new categories just for the hell of it.

It's probably a good five minutes before we see any human beings in A Touch of Zen - before that it's the title sequence, then some close-ups of insects in spider's webs, and various shots of water, trees, light, nature at rest. It's like a soft prayer before the story begins, and it's your first clue that this is no typical kung-fu action movie, containing almost none of the genre's usual concessions to audience attention spans. Even when the action does start up, it's pretty removed from the expected Shaw Bros. athleticism, instead punctuated by long stretches of patient waiting in between the jump-cut-aided fight choreography, just outside physical reality as we (think we) know it.

I love how this starts as something of an horror mystery develops towards earthly matters and later achieves heaven.

i'm all for atmosphere but this is glacially slow. that is really the one negative thing i'd say about this - it could lose an hour easily. plenty of this is beautiful and very well-made but... it's too damn long.

I loved A Touch of Zen, it does a great job of keeping suspense and drama up throughout a three hour film.

98% of this film is absolutely stunning, there are some scenes that look scratched up though. The scene in the mountains looks beautiful and the symmetry and balance of light and dark of the bamboo forest scene makes it a memorable one.

Some of Shih Chun's reactions are a little over the top, but forgivable.

Take note J.J. Abrams, this is how you use lens flares to your advantage.

Masterpiece.

Went in not knowing it was 3 hours 
And boy did I love every second of it.
I’m a slut for Wuxai films
The cinematography and editing are 2nd to none. 
The style is just incredible. 
Such a weird movie as well
Love it.

The martial arts battles are shockingly violent, spiritually transcendent, and often unashamedly silly, but require a patience with a quiet, darkly lit exposition that nearly constitutes the typical runtime of the smaller-scale genre gems I’m more used to watching. It’s the kind of slow-moving pleasure that’s greatly benefited by being experienced in the distraction-free environment of a theatrical screening; I just didn’t expect that its first act would be the most difficult to remain awake for.

Full review here.

Asian Cinema Challenge 2018 – Week 36: Wuxia

King Hu subverte muitos conceitos de um filme artes marciais. O herói do filme não sabe lutar, a mocinha não precisa ser resgatada (pelo contrário, é ela que resgata), a primeira luta acontece quase com uma hora de filme transcorrido e o filme transmite antes de tudo uma mensagem de iluminação pelo budismo. Simplesmente imperdível.

I had no idea I wanted to see a spaghetti western about 14th century samauri. And yet here we are and I love it. And that anamorphic cinematography though!

Hitchcock that morphs into Dragonball Z. Everything I didn’t know I needed.

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.