A martial arts riposte to James Bond, and Donnie Yen as a eunuch – how King Hu and Tsui Hark told the Dragon Inn story 25 years apart

Martial arts film director King Hu thought the James Bond films a bad influence on cinema-goers, and wrote Dragon Inn as a riposte to their casual violence

When Tsui Hark remade the film in 1992, he updated the story, disguising Brigitte Lin as a boy and having Maggie Cheung play against type as a bawdy innkeeper

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Polly Shang-Kuan Ling-Feng in a still from King Hu’s 1967 film Dragon Inn – her debut role. Tsui Hark filmed a remake, New Dragon Gate Inn, in 1992.

Published: 5:15am, 1 Nov 2020Updated: 5:26pm, 1 Nov 2020

The relationship between legendary martial arts film director King Hu, who made the original Dragon Inn in 1967, and Tsui Hark, who produced the remake New Dragon Gate Inn in 1992, is said to have been complicated.

According to Hu, Tsui used to write to him for filmmaking advice while he was a film student. After becoming a successful filmmaker, Tsui hired Hu to direct Swordsman in 1990, the first in his new-style wuxia series which would see massive success with Swordsman II in 1992.

Creative differences meant that Tsui fired Hu from Swordsman and initially brought in Ann Hui On-wah – who had worked as a kind of intern for Hu after graduating from film school – to reshoot footage for the film.

In interviews, Hui has said that none of the footage that she and Hu shot was used in the film, which in the end was directed by Tsui himself and Raymond Lee Wai-man.

The disagreement did not stop Tsui producing – and co-directing, although he was uncredited – a remake of Hu’s 1967 smash hit Dragon Inn, the second of Hu’s wuxia films following his groundbreaking Come Drink With Me in 1966.