Synopsis
When the children of an executed General are pursued in 1457 China, some heroic martial arts swordsmen intervene.
Dragon Inn
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Alternative Titles
Dragon Gate Inn, Long men kezhan, Lóng Mén Kè Zhàn, Breakthrough, Die Herberge zum Drachentor, La posada del dragón, Таверна у врат дракона, 龙门客栈
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Elementally perfect. enough to make you want to work at a movie theater where it's all they ever show.
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the most beautifully-designed, expertly-orchestrated anti-eunuch propaganda in the history of cinema. as far as the pacing and rhythm of combat goes this is about as perfect as it gets; the colors, the balletic movement of camera and performer, the entire film is actually a structured dance of action/reaction right down to the images and plot. also i know hu started as a set designer for shaw brothers but his eye for background and negative space in his compositions is insane. those misty mountain vistas in the final fight? chef's kiss. also stabbing someone with the sword that is still in your gut? metal as fuck
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No Mortal Kombat game has ever topped this film’s Fatality by Emasculation.
I’ve always been way more of a chambara guy than I am a wuxia guy, probably because I prefer the gritty, brutal Japanese sword fights to the Chinese (or here, Taiwanese) flying-through-the-air ballet dance sword fights. However, King Hu is quite appropriately seen as the king of classic wuxia cinema, and Dragon Inn is no exception.
The plot is more akin to old Spaghetti Westerns than anything else, as it sees the children of a defeated general fleeing from soldiers sent by their father’s rival to have them killed. They seek refuge in a small inn near the border, where four heroes look to aid in defending them…
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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.
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I love how Hu creates his film around the Inn setting. It is plots and co8unter plots a series of moves that characters have to go through. There is something else that sets Dragon Inn a part from most action films: it is a true ensemble effort. How many bad guys can claim it takes a bih group of heroes to fight him one on one? And there's that framing... and that editing...and that choreography... and that final scene...
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You know shit is about to get real when a man removes his blanket to go into battle
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feels like cinemascope was perfected in the 60s by sergio leone & king hu and we've been chasing their shadow ever since. truly an immaculate work of art: each frame of this tells a story, each shadow contains an infinite space, each object bursts with life, each movement causes mountains to tremble. there's nothing you can add or subtract to this without losing the purity of expression.
it's also an incredible action film where there's an amazing fight every 10 minutes, with a big bad villain showdown for the ages. it takes 5 motherfuckers to kill his evil ass, which they do in spectacularly violent fashion, and literally 5 seconds later the film ends. fuck yes.
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65/100
Starts out thrillingly classical, introducing Xiao as an archetypal lone badass—so confident in his power that he initially declines to be provoked into a fight, instead showing off his superhuman very-full-bowl-tossing skill. (Few things offer more pleasure in this genre than seeing someone non-violently demonstrate just how lethal he could be if he chose to exert himself.) Still on solid ground as it expands into more of an ensemble piece, though the claustrophobic intensity can't help but diffuse a bit when the action moves outdoors. Then comes the climactic battle sequence, and suddenly I no longer understand what I'm watching. To my knowledge, what happens has neither precedent or antecedent, in martial-arts cinema or even in action movies generally.…
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Insane that I had this at a mere 3 stars, because this is an excellent King Hu flick. Quite a bit more action packed than I am used to from him too.
Extremely cool.
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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.
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