King Hu lining up a shot (photo taken from Transcending the Times: King Hu & Eileen Chang, The 22nd Hong Kong International Film Festival (Provisional Hong Kong Urban Council, 1998)

Hu’s first wu xia pian, Come Drink With Me (Da Zui Xia, 1965–66) not only ushered in the first real wave of Hong Kong action films, but also stands out as being the film that completely changed the face of Chinese-language cinema for ever more. Of course, the literary genre of wu xiá is ancient, and the film genre is almost as old as film itself, in China.[3] Many silent martial arts/adventure films were made in Shanghai, but, traditionally, wu xia pian’s history had been hampered by unconvincing action and cinematic rendition as well as a general critical disdain for popular films. Even the work of the first major star of kung fu, Kwan Tak Hing who played the character Wong Fei Hung (or Huang Feihong) more than 75 times pales in comparison with the moves on display in Come Drink With Me. In the first of Kwan’s films, The True Story of Wong Fei Hung, Part 1: Whiplash Snuffs the Candle Flame (1949), one can see the roots of the Hong Kong action film, with acrobatic jumping from one level of an interior set to another, with the single protagonist in the centre of a circle of adversaries, and with sword, pole and unarmed combat. But there is little or no imagination in the filming of these scenes, and Kwan’s moves are un-athletic to say the least. Even in 1966, the year of Come Drink With Me’s release, we can find examples of commercially successful Hong Kong wu xia pian which look incredibly dated now. For example, The Jade Bow (directed by Zhang Xinyan and Fu Qi for Great Wall/Sil Metropole) is a highly entertaining and colourful film, with female characters in the principal action roles. It contains some imaginative special effects, but lacks the convincing action, deft editing and graceful movement of Come Drink With Me. Only a few moments of speeded-up action and some supernatural “special effects,” uncharacteristic of Hu’s developed style,—e.g., animated rays of chi emanating from the palms of human hands—hinder full appreciation today of this landmark film. It features the finest screen performance of Cheng (or Zheng) Pei Pei in, perhaps, the definitive prototypical role for warrior women in action. She is the central figure in a number of brilliantly choreographed fight scenes which include long tracking shots and cutting-on-movement, both of which enhance the film’s dynamism and beauty. The setting of an inn for one of the key sequences, where Golden Swallow (Cheng) catches coins on a hairpin (through the magic of montage), the introduction of a mistaken identity plot device—she is taken to be a man—and the decision to cast the events during the Ming Dynasty, in the 14th century, are all trade marks of Hu’s mature work.[4]

Two years before making Come Drink With Me, King Hu was credited as “associate director,” on Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yingtai (The Love Eterne or Eternal) directed by his friend Li Hianxiang, who became known as the most “classical” of Hong Kong-based directors. Apparently, Hu was responsible for directing the “action” sequences in this film, a musical version of the “Butterfly Lovers” story. In these sequences, the camera panning past foreground trees to follow character movements and the cutting on their leaving the frame (hence fragmenting and dynamizing the space), the stylised use of the widescreen and the evocative presence of manufactured mist are all elements that stand apart from the rest of the film and prefigure Come Drink With Me and the later films directed by Hu. Clearly, he possessed a distinctive style even before he became an accredited director.

In retrospect, Come Drink With Me, which was both a critical and commercial success in Hong Kong for its production company, Shaw Brothers, seems to be Hu’s most conventional film, and the one that most closely converges with Hollywood codes. For a while a “romantic” couple take centre stage: a “drunken knight” (played by Yue Ha) rescues Golden Swallow and they both survive a confrontation with the villains. Surprisingly, Hu opted to leave Shaw Brothers, and made his next film, Longmen Kezhan (Dragon Gate Inn, 1966–68) in Taiwan, for the Union Film Company. Perhaps he was already looking for greater freedom away from the commercialism of the Shaws, and it is evident in Dragon Gate Inn that the director was departing from Western narrative conventions. So much information is given at the opening of the film establishing the historical and socio-political coordinates that it is almost impossible to digest all of it; many heroic characters die at the end after facing seemingly insurmountable odds; both are situations that were unfamiliar to spectators of Hollywood entertainment. Also, stylistically, Hu elaborates and extends the build-up to confrontations in the inn, and “plays” with shot composition and rhythmic editing, especially highlighting the importance of the look. We begin to feel the intensity of a character’s gaze. Here the female star, Shangguan Lingfeng, gets top-billing and, like Cheng Pei Pei she cross-dresses, posing as Chu Huei, the “brother” of Chu Chi (played by Sieh Han). Following the aforementioned introduction, Hu provides a stunning fifteen minutes of exterior cinematography, where every shot is beautifully staged and composed and where the colourful (historically accurate) costumes are set off against a muted, greyish, rocky, natural landscape. Even more striking is the scene where Chu Huei returns to the inn and fights Mao Tsung-Hsien (played by Han Ying-Chieh), the agent of a eunuch (characters who recur often in Hu’s films). With arrows flying through the air and acrobatic moves made even more dynamic and exciting by using the full width of the widescreen frame and editing on the pulse, at the instant something or someone touches the frame edge—what David Bordwell terms the “glimpse”—Hu establishes himself as the true “master” of cinematic action.[5] In addition, Dragon Gate Inn is the film which clearly introduces principles and effects from Beijing opera, including the use of minimal, percussive, musical instrumentation such as the ban (wooden board).[6]

Action isn’t everything in A Touch of Zen, the longest and most complex of Hu’s finished projects. As its English title suggests, it is concerned with spirituality. Richard Combs wrote that the film “spreads itself out in space and time, through three distinct narrative sections, which elaborate the film first in personal, then in political and finally in religious terms, each being shed like a successive layer of skin.”[9] The first “section” contains some wonderfully atmospheric scenes set in old decaying buildings and overgrown gardens, which need to be seen on screen (rather than video) to appreciate their subtleties of decor, light and shadow. It is this section which is based on the (very) short story “Xia Nü” (or, “Hsia Nu,” The Magnanimous Girl) written by Pu Sung-Ling, and it introduces Xu Feng as the mysterious “girl next door” to the young scholar, played by Shih Chun. Part of the intrigue here centres around whether or not she is a ghost, but in the second section she is revealed to be a warrior, indeed, and she leaves her child (conceived during a single, magical night of love) for the scholar to raise, while she fights for their freedom! This incredible turn of events is one of many instances in Hu’s work which mark it as feminist before its time, and his next feature film, Yingchun Ge zhi Fengbo (The Fate of Lee Khan , 1973) presents no fewer than five young women in central action roles.

Like many creative forces in cinema before him (starting with D.W. Griffith and Eric von Stroheim in the Hollywood silent era), King Hu had a film, A Touch of Zen butchered by commercial interests, and after its box office failure in 1971 he signed with Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest to make his next two films. Even though they were designed to make money, we find the director still experimenting here with the setting of the inn—The Fate of Lee Khan—and the choreography of action in both Lee Khan and Zhonglie Tu (The Valiant Ones, 1975). I personally prefer the humour and gender balance on display in the former film to the testosterone charge and nationalist theme of the latter, but Stephen Teo makes a very strong case for the greatness of The Valiant Ones partly for its exposition of “valour” and “heroism.”[10]

Where I differ from other King Hu supporters, is that I feel he continued to experiment with the medium of cinema very successfully during the remainder of his career.[11] But, many do agree on the status of his two films made in Korea (between 1977 and 1979), Raining in the Mountains and Shan Zhong Chuanqi (Legend of the Mountain), which represent collectively, for me, the most beautiful work in his oeuvre. Hu had always struggled to find the perfect locations for his films, and, he clearly had run out of options in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Unfortunately at that time he was unable to return to his homeland and shoot in Mainland China, but found the next best option in the mountains of Korea. I like to think that he had seen Shin Sang-Ok’s oneiric masterpiece, K K’um (The Dream, 1967) and had been inspired by it to choose the Buddhist temple setting. In any event these two films demonstrate that Hu was always more interested in Chinese culture and history in general than its martial arts in particular: the care with which he sets his human characters physically and cinematically in the natural landscape and the old rooms, hallways and courtyards of the temple is truly extraordinary. As well, in Legend of the Mountain he manages to fuse the natural with the supernatural, and by casting the young Sylvia Chang as a (possible) ghost he gave us two ethereal female beauties in the same film (Xu Feng, of course, being the other).

PS: A shorter version of this essay appeared in the Festival Catalogue, The 5th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, PiFan 2001, July 12-20, p. 136-139) PiFan