Hong Kong martial arts cinema: A Touch of Zen, King Hu’s 1971 wuxia classic
- The third martial arts film the Chinese director made, this is the story of a fugitive and a group of monks who use their skills to overcome daunting odds
- Hu planned the martial arts scenes with choreographers, and showed his brilliance in the editing room afterwards
King Hu’s epic 1971 martial arts film A Touch of Zen transcends genres to stand on a par with cinematic classics such as John Ford’s The Searchers and Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai . The aim of the three-hour feature, set in the Ming dynasty, is to express the ineffable qualities of Zen Buddhism. The film’s artistic qualities received some recognition at the time, and it won the Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975.
A Touch of Zen was the director’s third wuxia film, following 1966’s groundbreaking Come Drink with Me and 1967’s box-office hit Dragon Inn . Hu, who was born in Beijing but moved to Hong Kong in 1949, made his first films at Shaw Brothers studio, but joined Union Films in Taiwan to make Dragon Inn.
That movie made so much money that Hu and Union Films were able to build a martial arts film studio in Taiwan, which was used to shoot much of A Touch of Zen.
A Touch of Zen is roughly divided into three parts. The first section focuses on an individual, and generally presents events from the point of view of one character. The second is political, and looks at the characters working together to achieve their goals. The third part is philosophical, and expresses the ineffable nature of spiritual transcendence, or nirvana.
The story begins with Ku (Shih Chun), a failed scholar who makes his living drawing portraits, meeting Yang (Hsu Feng) at the ruined fort where he lives with his mother. After an unexpected tryst with Yang, Ku discovers that her father was murdered when he tried to report a corrupt eunuch of the Gestapo-like Eastern Chamber to the Emperor. Yang is now fleeing murderous Eastern Chamber spies.