elementally perfect. enough to make you want to work at a movie theater where it's all they ever show.

100

A spirit-world.

So exciting to finally see this on the big screen, finally can get a sense of the sublimity of King Hu's use of space, the 'scope frame arranged so precisely in the various stand-offs, the judicious close-ups lunging out at the audience. Even smaller stuff, like the "take the shortcut" joke, which would be just as at home in a Mel Brooks movie, works so much better on the big screen, similarly the whip pans of Pai Ying's leaps out of danger, the gradual reddening of Shih Chun's eyes, and the gorgeous natural vistas that would go on to become an integral part of Hu's films. Having perfected the action movie in 1967, he was free throughout the 1970s to take it places no one has yet managed to follow.

I ended up watching this on YouTube, because there's not even a legitimate release on DVD. This is wrong. This should be on Criterion. Still trying to decide which is cooler: When Xiao catches an arrow in a porcelain wine carafe and with a flick of the wrist tosses it right back at the man who shot it at him OR every single camera movement, shot composition, and edit.

This is somehow both goofy and badass. Pacing is kind of weird and I had trouble following the narrative at times. The fight choreography was really interesting and at times very surprising. 

I need to see more movies with both Lingfeng Shangguan and Chun Shih. Both were terrific in this.

Whoa

"Take the short cut!"

i love lingfeng shangguan!!!! surprisingly the drama in this was more interesting to me than the action scenes (i guess that has to do with this being made in 1967 and my favorite wuxia films are the newer, more stylish ones by ang lee and zhang yimou) but i really did not expect to enjoy this as much as i did

My first King Hu. Similar feelings to my first Sergio Leone many years ago.

Also, this must hold the record for most arrow grabbing in a film. If you're into that, watch this immediately.

Rewatching the Marvel movies in the last few weeks, what stands out about Dragon Inn by contrast, and what makes its action scenes strikingly more vivid and engrossing than any in those movies, is the sense throughout that these characters would absolutely not like to be in life-or-death bouts and at the same time will not hesitate to kill each other to achieve their ends. Their mutual fear and concentration, not to mention the fact that the "good guys" are more than willing to exploit any weaknesses in their enemies, help create the sense that what's happening is not simply a morality play with sword fights but a struggle between parties hoping but not believing that they'll survive. Not having known going in who was fighting for whom, who was deceiving whom, or why, I'm looking forward to rewatching this.

I was inspired to see the Taiwanese classic action film Dragon Inn (1967) since it featured prominently in Ming-liang Tsai's 2003 film Goodbye Dragon Inn. It seems is was a bit of a turning point in Chinese language cinema due to it's popularity and artistic productions values incorporated into a martial arts film and was a sensation all over SE Asia in the late 60s and inspired the martial arts films that are still being churned out by the likes of Wong Kar-wai and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Entertaining if not overlong.

Feel free to ignore me since I'm definitely in the minority on this, but this feels like a step back in a lot of ways from Hu's previous film Come Dine With Me. Action feels a lot more stilted; even though the camera is a lot more pirouetted and purposeful, I think the actual fights are unremarkable in comparison. Maybe because I prefer the athleticism in martial arts films than the actual narrative (which I wasn't impressed here anyway) and technical aspects?

I'll be honest. I fell asleep a lot during this movie. This is in no way a commentary on the movie, I'm just a sleepy boy. What I was awake for was very, very good. Definitely an early entry in the genre, but still well done.