Regie:
King HuScenario:
King HuCamera:
Hui-Ying HuaMuziek:
Da-Jiang WuActeurs:
Feng Hsu, Chun Shih, Ying Bai, Peng Tien, Chien Tsao, Tien Miao, Ping-Yu Chang, Han Hsieh, Jui Wang, Roy Chiao, Ying-Chieh Han, Chung-Shan Wan, Ming Kao, Ming Kao (meer)Samenvattingen(1)
An unambitious painter named Gu (Chun Shih) lives with his mother in the vicinity of an abandoned mansion rumoured to be haunted. In actuality, the mansion has become a hiding place for the warrior Yang (Hsu Feng) and her own mother, both taking refuge following the assassination of their loyal minister father by the wicked eunuch Wei of East Chamber. After the eunuch sends an army to pursue the escapees, the group fortify the mansion with traps and false intimations of the terrifying ghosts within. But even after, things take yet more unsettling turns. (Eureka Entertainment)
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Recensie (2)
It's unreal that some movies just don't age. Of course, the visual aspect is aging a bit, but the story of this great wuxia film is still excellent and can still captivate you even after all this time. Yes, the runtime might seem excessive at first glance, but in reality, it's not, and the film will entertain you - assuming, of course, that you have an interest in kung fu.
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Though this three-hour epic may be held up as an essential milestone of kung fu and wuxia movies, its relationship to them is analogous to that of Tarkovsky’s Stalker to post-apocalyptic action flicks. King Hu created a phenomenal, unique work that towers over the whole world of martial arts and itinerant swordsman movies. Many other films in these genres, though made after A Touch of Zen, attempt to incorporate the philosophy of martial arts alongside physical attractions, but they mostly do so in an utterly literal way. Conversely, Hu used the then popular genre to create a captivatingly lyrical film that employs Taoist motifs to make the audience feel, together with the characters, a touch of Buddhist awakening and even Zen enlightenment. The radical nature of Hu’s vision becomes apparent in a comparison with the frequently recalled “literary source work”, which is a classic short story with supernatural and spiritual elements. Hu completely turns these on their head, or rather he unmasks their Taoist basis with rationality and a broader Buddhist perspective. His film remains out of line with the narrative standards of the time and even of today. The original Matrix trilogy has the closest thing to the structure that he uses here. As in the Matrix films, Hu presents viewers with a narrative that takes us through various ways of viewing the world (though in comparison with the Matrix films, he does so less literally and on a two-fifths scale). From the Taoist path of harmony of personal existence with the immediate surroundings, nature and the supposed energies and spirits around us, we set out through a vision of the wider world, a broader context and our own role in its web of relationships to the final enlightenment, which, however, is peculiarly not afforded to the protagonists, who are only witnesses to it during their own awakening. Accordingly, the narrative of A Touch of Zen also gradually changes the central character or focuses on various interrelated characters (unlike the Matrix films with their western-style individualistic ideal of “the chosen one”). The original title establishes a valiant lady as the central character, whereas the narrative places in the foreground an ordinary scholar who is not a hero, but rather serves as a guide for viewers. To a significant extent, his perspective conditions the film’s captivatingly impressive style and literally justifies the stylisation of many sequences, particularly the fight scenes. That stylisation is derived from the symbolist and dance tradition of the Beijing opera and differs from the then standard of the choreography and aesthetics of Hong Kong martial arts films, which were taken from the routines of particular martial arts schools and the bloody literalism of popular samurai movies. Western viewers may find A Touch of Zen enigmatic, which is largely due to its essential connection to Chinese culture and Hu’s work with its traditions. Despite this cultural barrier, however, A Touch of Zen is able to captivate properly open minds at least with its formalistic brilliance, particularly in the areas of editing and its work with colour and camera compositions.
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